Where I Was On 9/11/2001

Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 22134 – 705:

I can remember walking over to the bus stop with my kids. There is quite a busy street that feeds into Fort Carson called South Academy Boulevard and they were young so I would walk them across the street to the college where the bus stop was. One minute everything was normal and by the time we got across the street the traffic had stopped and backed up two and a half miles in either direction. Fighter jets from nearby Petersen Air Force Base screamed overhead at speeds none of us had ever seen before. You hear the sound of them in one part of the sky and see them in another part as they travel faster than the speed of sound. There was no place for us to go and nothing to be done about it but cross back over and go home. Soldiers were parking on the side of the road and walking toward the base. The convenience store parking lot was full as soldiers walked on toward the gate.

“What’s going on?”

“The country’s under attack and Fort Carson and the other bases are locked down.”

This meant that every vehicle and every person trying to enter had to be completely and thoroughly searched and only soldiers were allowed in. We hurried to the house and fired up the old dial-up modem and waited for one of the news websites to show us what was going on.

It was incomprehensible. I’m told that no one has ever seen all of the footage that was taken that day because it was that horrible. People jumping out of windows and off the buildings, knowing there was no rescue. There was no equipment to handle the sheer enormity. People in some countries weeping and in certain countries there was dancing in the streets, praising the cowardly attacks, as a victory over the great satan, America. Osama Bin Laden saying that his plan had worked far better than he could have even dreamed.

It used to be, when I was a boy, that some radical would hijack a plane and demand to be taken to Cuba or someplace but nothing like this had ever happened. Terrorist attacks happened in other countries, not here, although the World Trade Center had been attacked by Al Queada in 1993.

Terrorism is a vile and cowardly act by bullies who know they cannot play fair.

11 Comments

  1. I was in junior high. They stopped the whole school for a moment of silence. I had no idea why. Found out later from my aunt who had watched the planes crash into the twin towers that morning on tv. 9/11 is her birthday.

  2. I remember watching on the TV with junior high students in the library. I also remember the planes parked on our runways because the US had shut down their airspace. The horror of the towers collapsing is etched into all of us in North America. We really are close neighbours and Canadians were horrified and devastated by 9/11. That’s why we went to Afghanistan with the US.

  3. I was in college, having breakfast in the dining hall. They always had the radio on (I remember an idiot DJ describing Uncle Kracker exactly by the music video, which I saw later, as if they were coming up with the ideas themself; this was on another day, but just goes to prove I remember those mornings well), and on this morning they switched to news coverage. They reported how a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Honestly, I thought nothing much of it. I went to English class. I guess I heard more about what was happening, and decided to skip my next class (French), and it was at that point everyone was congregating at the student union, just watching the footage in abject bewilderment. I sent an email to my parents (later, they made it clear a call would have been better), in which I spoke of having faith that all would be well. My dad talks about remembering where he was when Kennedy was assassinated (sitting on a short wall in the neighborhood, listening to a portable radio; he was thirteen at the time). I can remember talking about the stupid cruise ships in January this year, well before any of us realized the extent of the developing pandemic. It’s always interesting to know with absolute clarity where you were when history happened.

    • Yeah. I can remember my dad and I watching our little black and white portable as Niel Armstrong said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

  4. I was at home having my cable TV installed and when the picture finally came in, the first thing I saw was the Twin Towers on fire. After hearing what happened, I remember feeling a range of raw emotions- shock, horror, and most of all ANGER! But the part that really hurt me was the jumpers. Seeing those people jumping to their deaths. I can’t imagine knowing I’m going to die and having to CHOOSE which way to go! It’s just too horrific. I remember praying for the families left behind and for our country. I’ll remember that day until I close my eyes forever. God bless America!

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