That terrible day in 2001 shattered the innocence for many of my generation, Gen X. We had really never seen war and we sure had never believed something like this could happen on U.S. soil.
I was driving to work in Minneapolis that fateful morning, radio tuned in to KQRS 92.5 FM listening to the banter. Suddenly they interrupted the light-hearted discussion with news that an airplane had hit one of the twin towers. The host Tom Barnard, or maybe Terri Traen suggested it was a small, private aircraft.
Shortly thereafter the second plane hit and everyone knew that something very serious was happening.
At work, I couldn’t think of anything but getting more information on what was happening. All of the news websites were entirely overwhelmed and not responsive. Nobody had good information, were 100,000 people in the towers or 10,000? How bad was it really?
A television was wheeled out into the lunch room. I was done working, no way to focus. Fear, anger, concern, and a complete lack of knowledge made work an impossibility.
The Pentagon was hit. The Pentagon, how was that possible?
Are we going to start shooting commercial airplanes out of the sky?
Then the towers fell.
Tears came streaming down everyone’s faces. Terror. The deaths of untold numbers of our fellow humans, Americans, and more. How could this happen to us? How could our government let this happen to us?
With whom are we at war?!?
I left work to prepare to leave the city in case there was another attack. I wasn’t going to wait around and have a plane hit the Mall of America, just miles from where I lived.
The look of the sky that night with no contrails (or chemtrails), the silence under the landing path at Minneapolis/St. Paul International airport, was beautiful in its own way as the fear and determination of the day set in.
I will never forget what those people did to us that day. The heroes fighting to save lives in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania. Their bravery will not be forgotten. The wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters whose lives were viciously taken that day, will live forever in my memory.
What do you recall about September 11, 2001? How will you remember?