Taking the kids to seminary, the radio announcer KNBR was
interviewing their stock market broker in New York trying to figure what
was happening. This was after the first plane had hit the World Trade Center, but before
the 2nd. The question was, whether or not this was a terrorist attack,
or an accidental plane running into the World Trade Center. They
weren't even sure what size of plane it was, and there was speculation
it may have been a small plane. But in the back of my mind was this
feeling it was a deliberate attack. Just before getting to seminary
about 6 a.m. on the Pacific Coast or 9 a.m. in the East, the second
tower was hit. At that point everyone new it was a terrorist attack.
I hurried home, and turned on the T.V. so we could watch
the morning's events. That is when I was presented with the gravity of
the situation, and the horror. When this event first happened, people
could not get enough of watching the planes crash into the towers with
the plume of fire. It is hard to find this on the internet anymore.
The people so desperate that they were jumping from the buildings, that
was a nightmare.
I had to tear myself away to go and
pick people up from seminary, and then again to go to work. The first
tower had collapsed before I went to work. That was so unbelievable.
Who could think that the towers would actually collapse. I thought that
there would be a fire, but they would remain standing, like when they
were bombed previously. I was so convinced of the invulnerability of
our country. I had another thought coming.
Shortly
after getting to work, we were evacuated to the mental health
administration where we continued to watch the events. It seems someone
had made a bomb threat to the hospital, and non-essential services were
moved.
We continued to watch the T.V. at the
administration building, and before noon they finally told us we could
go home. What a day, and I was still glued to the T.V. watching any new
tidbit I could get. I watched the video of President Bush, being
informed, but acting in such a way as not to alarm the children he was
with, of the planes being scrambled, of the Washington D.C. being
threatened, the president hidden away, both towers collapsing, the
Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania, the loss of the first
responders, the clean-up and so much more.
And then after all that, ten years of war, but through that ten years, no further attacks on our soil. My son has been to Iraq, and who knows where he might serve in the future. So 9/11 is not a single event, but a series of events.
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