I had been in the field all night running DA training and was on my way to a girlfriend's house to take a shower and catch a nap before meeting her for lunch and news coverage had just came on as I was coming out of the shower. I sat down on the side of the bed with my head hanging low. Just come to the realization that this Great Nations security had been shaken to its foundation and this would be a day that would be remembered for generations and for those of us who had sworn an oath to protect this Great Nation from such actions would be now given the opportunity to avenge this despicable act. I was saddened and angry also came to the realization that our lives would never be the same. I have personally lost several good friends and acquaintances to The War on Terrorism, which is a direct result of the actions taken place on 9/11 and for those who lost loved ones and friends on this day. They all have my deepest sympathies

 

 

I remember hearing someone say that a plan crashed into one of the WTC towers. I remembered reading about the B-25 crashing into the Empire State Building due to visibility issues, so the first thing I did was to look out the window. Even though I'm in Philly area, I still looked to see the cloud cover...or lack their of. One of my co-workers comments was, "I blame George Bush for this." I just remember thinking..."What?" These people have hated us for a long, long time and Bush was barely in office for what, 9 months?

The 1st sobering moment was watching the live streaming videos and watching the first tower collapse.
The 2nd sobering moment was having to remove every resident of the towers from my company sales database. Did you know each tower had it's own zipcode?
The 3rd reality set it...the quiet the skies.

I personally didn't know anyone that died in these incidents, but I know that a part of my father died when this occured. It hit him hard.

 

It was/is a shame what happened. Now with oil at $115/barrel we are giving them 5X more than we did back then. Usually when we identify the enemy we don't go out ofour way to help them, but given all the SUVs and trucks used for everyday transportation purchased since 9/11I think otherwise.

I agree...NEVER FORGET... and more importantly, NEVER FORGIVE. Fight the enemy by conserving energy whenever you can.

 

I was still building cabinets at the time.

I was actually working on a Xando Cosi store (some of you might know it - we built all of them so if you've been in one you've seen my work), anyway - the Cosi store that we were building was going to the North Tower. I heard it on the radio and I told a buddy that a plane accidentally crashed into the tower.

So we all scurry to the break room and are watching it on TV. Thinking, well, they'll get the fire out... When we seent he second plane hit it was dead silent and dropped jaws. No one knew what to say.

Then someone said, "isn't that Cosi we're building going in that tower?" We checked our blueprints and sure enough. Their cabinets were shipping out that day. It was weird for a while after that because that cabinet package sat in our shop for about a month after that. Every piece had, "XC-Trade Center NY, NY" followed by the job number. Anytime anyone was in a good mood after that and was hapy and laughing and whatever - as soon as your eyes glanced down at those order numbers you couldn't help but to lose the smile.

We lost a lot of good folks that day and I'd be lying if I didn't say it was one of the few things in life that led me to understand true compassion amongst strangers.

I just wish that patriotism and compassion extended beyond the 3 year anniversary. It's almost as big a tragedy that we still find ourselves divided amongst brothers.