In 2001, I just started back in college to finish my degree. I had an 8am Spanish class at St. Michael's College that was held everyday. It was a Tuesday, 2 days after my 23 birthday. I can even remember what I was wearing- my yellow tank Patagonia dress with flip flops. We were watching a video in class that went along with our textbook. When Professora Pachman turned the DVD off, the TV was still on and we saw briefly an image of a burning building that a plane had struck. Professora quickly turned it off because she didn't want ANY English spoken (or heard) in class. Many of us wanted to know what was happening, so we went right after class to the library to get online to see what happened. The computers were so slow because the whole world was trying to figure out what was happening. Not able to find out much, other than a plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City. I was thinking it was a Cessna or something like that- not a 737 filled with people. I headed to my next class- psychological statistics (taking psych research and finding correlations and such... it really was an interesting class) where my Richard Gere look-a-like professor had the TV on. Students were shocked to find out it was a 737. We sat and watched the second plane hit the tower. It looked like an obscene movie. We watched the towers fall- not able to move from our seats to leave for other classes. Some students left sobbing. Most were in shock. It was unreal to think that someone, ANYONE, could do such a thing.
Some geography for you- St. Michael's College is located up the hill from the Vermont Air National Guard where my father had worked my entire life to that point (and 4 more years after). If I could have, I would have communted to school with my dad every morning. On September 11th, my father was at Hickam Air Force Base on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Pretty ironic, if you think about it- some 60 years prior, there was a horrific terrorist attack where he was. Only today, it was halfway across the world in New York, as well as DC and Pennsylvania. The Vermont Air Guard (or VTANG as I call them) was alerted and scrambled to go after any plane that didn't respond to the grounding order. I've been told by VTANG members that our F-16's were some 20-30 miles from flight 93 when it went down in Pennsylvania. The next day, VTANG was the first Air Force group to fly over the site in New York to guard against further attacks- a no-fly-zone had been created. As you remember, we were all on edge. we hadn't been attacked for some 60 years- how could this have happened? Why did it happen? Why did so many innocent people die? 10 years later we are still asking those questions.
For my grandfather, it was "Where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked?"
For my mother and father, it was "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?"
For all of us (3 generations), it was "Where were you on 9/11?" We all know the year- it just known by the month and date. Pretty interesting.
In 2005, I took a friend to New York for my birthday to see the Red Sox play the Yankees. We toured the city and had a great time (except for getting lost in Jamacia, NY after the game... not so fun...) We did go to Ground Zero (where the towers had been). I cried just seeing the flag behind what was left. Here are a couple of pictures I'd like to share.
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| the hole |
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| Ground Zero, 4 years later |
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| even reading this, I started to cry |
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| a cross from the ashes |
It is now September 12th, almost the 13th. The remembrances and speeches have gone away and it's back to the same old same old. Many thousands perhaps even millions of lives were changed that fateful day in September. For some, it's just a day on a calender. For others, that will be etched in their hearts and minds forever.
What will you remember?
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| View of lower Manhattan |
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