This is what I was doing on 9/11 here in Rome It was a hot early September day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I think the temperature reached 90 that day. I remember it well. I was at work, at a car dealership. I had to drop off a car to a muffler shop for a 9 am appointment. I arranged with one of the salesmen to pick me up. He agreed and said he would be right there. So I left to drop off the vehicle assuming he would be following me. I arrived at the shop, and checked in the vehicle. I then went outside to wait for my ride. I was just looking around, enjoying the weather, taking in the scenery, blue skies, and the sun was hot and it was only 9:00. There were some geese sunning in a nearby pond. I remember thinking to myself “what a perfect day this is”. I could never have been so wrong in my life. For the events that followed were one of the worst moments this country has had to endure. I was so caught up in enjoying the day outside; I had not realized how much time had gone by. After a while I decided to check the time, it was 9:30, I was saying to myself my ride should have been there a half an hour ago. I went back in the shop to use the phone. I called the salesman and asked if he was coming. He said franticly, “New York was under attack! I forgot to get you, I’ll be right there.” New York was under attack? What? New York? What the heck was he talking about? I thought for sure he was pulling a prank on me, being late to pick me up and everything. I thought when he gets here I we’re going to have a little talk about leaving me stranded and giving me some crazy story about why he did not pick me up. So the salesman, his name was Ken, pulls into the parking lot. He was an older man, in his late fifties. Balding, the wrinkles were starting to really take form on his face. I was still a little perturbed about how long I was waiting for him. But I seen right away by the look on his face that something was really bothering him. Something serious had just happened. I hopped in the car and asked him what happened to being right behind me? He said he was walking by the waiting room on his way to pick me up when he noticed people staring at the TV and it was a shot of the World Trade Center and one of them was on fire. Then right before his eyes on the TV, a plane went flying into view and hit the other tower leaving a fiery inferno on the second tower. I could not believe what I was hearing. I asked if he was just messing with me. He said he was dead serious. I still looked at him in disbelief. I could start to see the fear in his eyes. I told him to hurry back so I can see what he was talking about. We sped away, back to the dealership. When we got back to the dealership, every employee and customer was in the waiting room glued to the TV. We were all looking at images of the Towers on fire. Then in what seemed like hours of staring at the television which only turned out to be a matter of minutes, there was reports of another plane crashing in Washington D.C. The reports were unclear as to where. Some said it was the white house, some reports were saying it was the Capitol Building and then the Pentagon. The reports that our nation was under attack started to come out now. Everyone in the room started to get really panicked by then. The phone rang. The receptionist answered it and said the call was for me. I picked up the call and it was my wife on the other end. She was in screaming in a frantic tone. She was telling me the country was under attack. Our area, Griffiss Business Park, was a targeted area, she begged me to come home. She was told me she heard reports that there could be hundreds of planes hijacked and come crashing all over and that there was possibility of a military invasion too. It took me a while to get her to calm down, but deep inside, I had these frightful thoughts going through my head too. Back out in the waiting room, footage of the burning building come in, ground footage of fire fighters and policemen running around, clearing people out of the way. Helping the injured, running inside the building to put out the fire and rescue survivors. I think I was watching Dan Rather with a view of the towers over his shoulder when it happened. One of the towers seemed to envelope into this giant cloud of dust. At first I thought it was just smoke or dust surrounding the tower, then after a second, I think it all hit us at the same time. What we just witnessed wasn’t a dust or smoke cloud envelope the tower, but dust and smoke left behind after the tower collapsed. Collapsed, collapsed, I can’t believe it, it just fell. It’s gone, gone forever. The people around me were gasping with the awe they had just seen. Some started crying, others just stood there in bewilderment. I thought of the thousands of dead from the attacks, the people that never had a chance, men woman and children, really started to get to me. I started getting angry, the disgust and hate for the people that did this to us, to all of us. My blood started to boil. I had to walk away for a minute to get my composure. I wanted revenge and I wanted it now! My wife calls me again. “Oh my god the building collapsed”, she was screaming. She didn’t know what to do, all she wanted was for me to come home and be there with her. I told her I couldn’t yet, but would be soon. I return to the television, just in time to see the second tower fall. It was just as eerie as the first. This time, we all knew what had happened.. Video of people running for their lives as this giant cloud of dust and smoke came crashing over them. We all looked on in horror. By now scenes from Washington started airing, and then news of another flight crashing in Pennsylvania. We heard that the FAA was grounding all flights to the closest airports. The entire country was now a no fly zone. Camera crews started reaching the area where the towers once stood. The dust was thick in the air still. Scenes of people walking out of the clouds reminded me of the footage from the Vietnam War where women and children come running out of giant cloud of smoke that used to be their village. The Air Force just dropped napalm bombs on it. The children were running out with their clothes burned off of them. Their skin burned and melted. It was frightening then, it is frightening now. The rest of the day was a blur, I remember no one showed up for their appointments and we got a lot of calls for cancelling appointments for the rest of the week. One of the last things I remember was sitting on the couch watching the news, recapping the day’s events. Then live from the Capitol Building, members of congress gathered on the steps singing “God Bless America”. At that moment, the view of our nation’s leaders gathered together, spontaneously braking out in that old hymn. My eyes started to water, and then within seconds, I started sobbing hard. My emotions of the day built up and finally were released. I felt helpless. That’s what I remembered on that day. That Beautiful fall day, there was not a cloud in the sky. The sun was warm the wind was calm. I could never have been so wrong.
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 22:59:45 +0000
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