I Remember Where I Was On 9-11

14 years ago today, when our nation was attacked by terrorists, I was working nights at the Post Office. I had just gotten home from work and was about to go to the bank with a paycheck and vote (our city’s mayor was up for re-election), and then go to bed when I noticed that my mom’s eyes were glued to the television. I looked to see what she was so engrossed in, and I saw a plane fly into a tall building and watched it collapse. My first thought was, “What a terrible accident.” It didn’t even occur to me that someone might have done this on purpose. Then I saw another plane fly into the other building next to it, and I heard the reporter say, “That was definitely intentional. This has to be deliberate, folks.” But my mind still couldn’t accept that someone could have done that intentionally. Then, I heard that another plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and still another one (which was most likely headed for the White House) had gone down. So there was no denying that this was an attack, not an accident. But it still took a while for it to sink in.

Because at least two of these planes were United flights, I immediately thought of my next older sister, who was a flight attendant for United Airlines at the time. My sister called as soon as she could get to a phone. She was stranded in Chicago, because all of the flights had been grounded. My mom told me as soon as she got off the phone with her. We were so relieved to know that she was okay.

After staring at the TV and watching this scene replayed over and over again for a while, I managed to tear myself away from the TV and went about my business. I went to the bank and made my deposit, and then voted. When I was coming back from the bank, all the buses were full of people who had been sent home from work early, because everyone was afraid that a plane might crash into whatever building they happened to be working in downtown. So I just managed to get my business done before they shut everything down for the day. Voter turnout was at a record low. I wonder how many people in Minneapolis remembered that there was an election that day.

I couldn’t help feeling a little bit guilty about the fact that I wasn’t affected by this in the same way that some other people were. So many people were terrified, or grief-stricken, by what had just happened. But I was a little bit too preoccupied by what was going on in my own personal life to be emotionally impacted in the way that a lot of other people were. You see, during the time when this happened, I was falling hard and fast for a guy at work who was devastatingly handsome and seemed to be everything that I could possibly want. So, though my mind was trying to process this horrible thing that had just happened, my emotions were too focused on my feelings of attraction for him to really feel the impact of what had just happened. So when the news media advised people to just go ahead and do whatever they were about to do when this happened and not let it change any of their plans, I didn’t have any problem taking this advice. This was very out of character for me, because I am usually very emotionally affected by things like this.

This makes me wonder, was there any “right” way to respond to this? Does this make me a callous or self-absorbed person?

What are your memories of that day? Where were you? What was going on in your life at that time? What were your thoughts?

Stereoguy

It just makes you you. Everyone handled it differently. I own a residential construction company in the Washington DC suburbs. I was converting part of a basement into a nanny suite that day. When I got to the ladies house the first plane had just hit the tower. She asked if I had heard about it on the radio. I told her no. She invited me into the living room to watch the news about it. From there we watched everything unfold. I didn't know what to say. Sadly one of my first thoughts was how would this affect business? When Desert Storm happened people called and cancelled their jobs. It got so bad that I literally couldn't pay someone $50 to even take an estimate. I shouldn't have been so callous, but I have responsibilities to my employees and their families. Finally I went out for lunch that day. I went to Jerry's Subs and Pizza. Only two other people came in the entire time. Jerry's was in a shopping center. The place was deserted. I even got front row parking which was incredible. At one point the police came around checking all the stores the one that checked the restaurant even had his hand on his gun the whole time. I will always remember it. Another one of our friends was in the National Guard. He was called in and his unit was sent to Dulles airport. What was amazing was that even though these guys were all carrying M-16's none of them had any ammunition. It was all for show. Our friend asked his sergeant when they were getting ammo and the sergeant told him they weren't. He said they were more afraid of them shooting themselves then terrorist. Can you believe that! Wow!

TeresaRudolph71 · 51-55, F

Thanks for that. It's nice to know that I wasn't the only one who had other things on my mind that day. I don't think it was callous of you to think of how this would affect your employees and their families. I think that that makes you a good, caring employer. And it does seem kind of odd that none of those M-16's had any ammunition. But I suppose that sometimes, appearing to be armed can be just as good as being armed for real. And I'm a little bit surprised that they were afraid of shooting themselves. But I guess they're only human, like the rest of us. I wouldn't know how to handle a loaded gun myself. It is interesting to see how different people handled that day so differently.

Stereoguy

Thank you very much. I was amazed that they didn't have ammunition either. We went up to the Pentagon and took some pictures of the damage. The place was ringed with Hummers with 50 caliber machine gun's on them and a gunner behind each one.