9-11

A post I wrote but didn't post on my main blogs... 

I am writing this September 5th.  Because I can't 6 days from now.   It is too specific to the day if I did and the memories would be too hard.  And I wasn't even there.  I can't even imagine the experience of those at the sites.  I probably don't deserve the right to say anything.  

But I have memories about it, so I will speak.  And I remain SO SO VERY Angry.  Forgetting would be a gift...

My recollections:

About 8:50 AM, I hear on the radio that a WTC Tower has been hit by "a plane".  My 2nd level supervisor was previously in charge of "Emergency Management", so I tell him about it.  He turns on his radio and calls a few people he knows to find out more.  I go back to work.

At about 9:05, we hear that the other Tower has been hit.  Oh crap, it's not an accident...  2nd Level boss makes more calls, I go to the media room.  We have TVs there.  Everyone in the office knows something horrible is happening.

WTC Tower 1 is falling...

We are watching the replays.  Then I suddenly shouted "that's the other one".  Heads turn.  Is is indeed not a replay.  We are all horrified worse.   I had been up there once and couldn't look over the edge through the glass walls.  My friends laughed at me.  But it was a long way down.

What is worse than a horrible event once?  Twice does it.  We gasped for breath at the first Tower falling; the 2nd left nothing in us.  There wasn' anything we could DO about it.  Helpessness times anger = Zero.

We became ANGRY though.  We didn't know what was happening, but we understood SOMEONE was doing it.

Shortly after 9:30, we all felt a deep "THUMP" come up from the ground.  We were in an old solid stone building just a couple blocks from The White House.  No shock-absorption.   Then we heard another plane hit the Pentagon.  Tghat was the "THUMP".  We felt it a mile away.

And then we heard a 4th plane was on it's way to  Washington DC.  Most people just left for home.  I watched the street just fill up and unmoving.  My carpool decided to wait.

So there was this plane headed our way and no way to actually leave.  I went up on the roof to look around.  Nothing much else I could do.  It seemed safer on a big stone building than on the streets below filled with cars full of gasoline...

The last plane didn't get here.  We didn't know about "why" until hours later.  Communications were iffy.

Today, I know about the final struggle to stop that last plane (and honor those who stopped it) but we didn't know then (in the moment it was occurring).

I was the carpool driver that day.  When the streets began to clear, I called everyone to say we could leave.  It seems so minor now, but we had to take a weird route out of DC and frustrating details mattered at the time.  We were all so angry and confused.

I got us onto a familar road way out of our usual path and got us to the meeting spot.  No one said a word; just got in their cars to go home.

I can't quite remember the next few days.  I think we all just obsessively watched the Towers falling and people running from the dust and debris and the anger at the deaths (some agonizing ones of people swan-leaping to escape the flames and one person falling while pushing away from the abrasive walls.

I will never forgive or forget.  

I will never forgive or forget. 

I will never forgive or forget. 

Justice has not yet been provided.  

The 2nd Tower to fall, I think...

  My anger remains unabated...