This is my recollection written on 12 September 2001. I wanted to write it all down while it was fresh in my memory so years later I could read it and remember it as it was, not as my mind eventually processed it all. I went out and bought every magazine, newspaper, etc., I could find when they began coming out in the weeks after. I still have them all. It's fascinating to read them and remember what the mindset was then compared to what we know now. Also, if you have never seen the documentary 9/11 you really should. It's very interesting and sad. I've owned the DVD since it came out in 2002 and have watched it almost every anniversary. Anyway......

 

September 11, 2001 started out like any other day. I woke up, had my coffee and breakfast and watch a Monday Night football game. I was living in Germany at the time and the game was tape delayed to been seen on Tuesday due to the 6 hour time difference. I had just finished watching it when a news report came on saying something had happened at the World Trade Center in New York. Like anyone who lived through the media farce that was the OJ Simpson deal, I didn't give it much thought until I saw the second plane headed straight toward tower two. I watched in horror as the building swallowed the 747 whole. I quickly counted back 6 hours hoping it wasn't opening time for the offices in the building. It was. I couldn't take my eyes off of the TV screen no matter how hard I tired. I was hoping beyond all hope that I was seeing a movie with great special effects or someone was playing a trick on us. Neither was the case.

 

No one on the morning news shows was making sense. They said there was the possibly this was a terrorist attack. A what? Someone with NBC was talking to a guy at the Pentagon. He suddenly says he's heard a big boom. He thinks the Pentagon has been hit. What? That's impossible, I think to myself. You can't hit the Pentagon! What the hell is going on? I keep watching and listening. A plane has hit the Pentagon for sure. The President comes on the television to say there has been an apparent terrorist attack on America, then he heads off for parts unknown for security reasons. All of the airports have been shutdown and planes diverted to Canada to land.
 
All of a sudden Tower One of the WTC begins to crumble. One hundred ten floors of steel and glass implodes on itself. Weren't there people still in there? People are running in the streets as fast as they can to get away from the debris falling fast behind them. Some people stand still to watch, either out of shock or morbid fascination. It's as black as night and when the dust clears everyone and everything is covered in white. There are people screaming and crying, either in pain or because they just lost someone in the crush. I feel myself getting sick. I feel like I have a fever and that I'm going to throw up. Soon after a portion of the Pentagon collapses and I later learn that there were 74 active duty Army soldiers killed. I cry.

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The White House and UN have been evacuated, there are Secret Service guys everywhere with high powered automatic weapons at the ready. For a split second I wish one of them would shoot me so I wouldn't feel this much pain. I have seen dead people before, I have a medical background, but I have never seen such devastation in my short life.
 
At approximately 10:30EST the second tower at the World Trade Center implodes. Surely they evacuated that building after the first attack- right? They had a twenty minute head start after the first plane hit the first tower. I learn later that people were told to go back to their offices, everything was okay. Now those people are dead. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, cancels a visit to South America and heads back to the States. Police confirm there was a plane crash in Pennsylvania. Was this part of the attack. I start to freak out- how many planes are in the air? Who will get hit next? From Louisiana President Bush promises that the United States will “punish those responsible”. I want blood. I want death to those who did this to my country. I want to kill them myself. This is war and the president as much as says so.
 

<div>Tom Brokaw from NBC was on. He wasn't telling me what I wanted to hear. It seems Osama bin Laden was the suspect so far. This was not a surprise to me. The fiend has been trying to kill us for years although I didn't know why. Before this day I was the typical American. I wasn't too concerned with other people's issues- I had plenty of my own to deal with. I never really watched the news either, too depressing. Now all I could watch was the news and as far as I was concerned, everything was my issue.
 
I stayed awake that night, getting more depressed by the hour. Not just because of what happened or what was being said, but because there were people trapped in those buildings. The rescue needed to hurry and get them out! I knew they understood this because they were doing the best they could. A media mouth at Ground Zero was saying there was about 300 rescue personnel missing. Apparently in the buildings when they went down. In my book they were instant heroes. They were estimating the missing to be in the thousands at the WTC, a couple of hundred at the Pentagon and Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania had 38 people dead. So many innocent people. My blood ran cold and the thought of murder for these terrorists flashed through my mind again.
 
I went out to the nearest German cigarette machine just down the street. I needed to do something. I had quit smoking a few months back and had been doing really well with it, but not tonight. The cold air felt good against my hot skin and I took a deep breath to clear my head. I walked quickly and as quietly as possible, the roving guards were out and there was a curfew of eleven o'clock which meant I was breaking a federal law mandated by the command of the installation. I got my cigarettes and and I was walking back I heard voices. I stopped dead cold and listened to hear if they were the roving guards or someone else. Hearing American voices I sighed with relief and half walked, half ran home.
 
Back in the house I lit a cigarette and sat on my couch to hear more news. They still had not found anyone alive at any of the three sites. I said a silent prayer for the families and friends of those missing and went to bed.
 
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