9/11

 It was a little after 7am when I got up out of bed, had breakfast, and readied myself for work. It was my first job out of college, selling residential pest control in Sarasota, Florida. I had a routine, get up, shower, dress, have a bowl of cereal, then out the door.

The day started out like so many — it was a Tuesday, I’d gone into to work to prep for my day — only one stop today, so it would be light. After about an hour or so in the office, I get in my car to start my day, and turn on Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio. That’s when I hear…

“We’ll get back to that story in a moment but right now we’re following this story about a plane that’s evidently crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings.”

I thought… Wow, a Sesna? How did the pilot missed that? That’s gotta suck.

But then… the ABC News Special Report… a jet airplane had plunged into one tower of the World Trade Center — many casualties expected.

 

I start to call. “Did you hear this?” “Did you hear that?”

President Bush was in Sarasota at the time, so I head down to the airport to see Air Force One.

A stop off at Stark Truss shows visual evidence… a second plane has crashed into the other World Trade Center tower.

The news gets worse.

It’s a hijacked plane.

Cell phones are impossible at this point, as you can’t even get a signal. Dialing out is worthless. I rush home and that’s when I see it… the devastation, the carnage, the catastrophic loss of life… it’s so amazingly tragic, so stunningly awful, so fantastically heartbreaking … people running everywhere, screaming and crying … blood mixed with ash and fire littered the streets of one of the greatest cities on Earth. What was once a towering signal of capitalistic strength — reduced to nothing… in a matter of hours… and the world would change forever.

My life — the way I see things, the way I view things — changed forever that day. I can’t explain it, but there almost isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t relive the moments in my mind at some point… seeing that plume of smoke in the air — hearing the thunderous thuds of human bodies who had given up on any hope of saving — falling and crashing into the earth beneath them.

The confusion… the deadening silence of no planes being allowed to fly…

 

The anger and determination to see the demise of those who had committed these horrible acts… the fury of watching them celebrate in the streets like animals — at the thought of innocent women and children who died that day…

and the pride of a nation that came together, albeit for a brief time — Conservatives and Liberals… Democrats and Republicans… Blacks, Whites, Hispanics… men and women.. young and old … together, in unity.

If for a stitch in time, there wasn’t a label — there wasn’t an ideology or an agenda. We were Americans. And we were hurting. We consoled one another. We tried to understand the calamity. We offered solace, and comfort as best we could. We stood united — bruised and battered, but not defeated.

We were the United States of America, and the date was September 11th, 2001.

Where were you…?