Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)

I had just settled down in my office for the morning when the fax machine began churning yet another fax.  I ignored it, as usual.  In 2001, I was operating a news site, and it was not uncommon for news stories to be delivered via fax.  I’ll check it later.

Then the next fax came through just about two or three minutes later.  And then another, and another.  This was not common.  I walked across the room to see what was up, and I read something that drew my attention immediately.  One of the faxes described an explosion, and the other two described a plane crash.

I flipped on CNN and watched live footage of smoke billowing from one of the massive World Trade Center towers that adorned the NYC skyline for decades.  At the moment, I didn’t grasp  the magnitude of what had just happened, because I was still left out of the details.  The damage looked pretty bad, but was this an accident?  It had to be.  No one would purposely fly a plane into a building.  That’s nuts.

Maybe five minutes later, everything changed… for me and everyone else who was witnessing this atrocity.  I watched a second plane crash into the 2nd tower… live.  This was not “recorded earlier…” and replayed as a reminder of events of the past… this was live.  I watched hundreds of people die right before my eyes.

I sat down, and probably didn’t move from that spot for hours… just glued to the television.  There was no Twitter or Facebook to get the reactions of everyone else in the world, but it was still a trending topic across the globe.  While we in the United States cried in horror and pain, there were those in places like Afganistan who danced in the streets.

For the remainder of the day, nothing else mattered.  I’m not even sure that I stopped for lunch.  I could do nothing more than just watch… helplessly.  The Pentagon was attacked, and then the crash in PA, and then watching the remainder of the WTC plaza fall and burn from the massive shaking of Manhattan… one by one.  People crying on live news as they stare in uncertainty of the fate of friends that were in the attacked buildings, but are not unaccounted for.

Evil.  That is the word that was tossed around all day.  There was nothing closer to the truth when describing the attacks.  Innocent people who just wanted to live the American Dream now faced nightmares instead… all at the hand of an evil man named Osama Bin Laden.  Many people had never even heard the name before until later in the evening.  He suddenly became the most well knowsn, the most wanted, yet most hated man in America.

In the top office for less for only 8 months, President George W. Bush rose from the ashes with every eye in the world upon him.  At least for a little while, Americans were united, even if the mutual agreement was one thought… justice.  Those responsible had to pay.

“Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended.” quoted from President Bush.  “Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.”

Years later, America continues to heal, yet many scars remain.  Osama Bin Laden is presumed dead, and to many people, justice has been served.  To others, there is no justice that can replaced the human lives and sense of freedom that is continually stripped from us more and more since that day eleven years ago.  Anyone who has to walk through a full body X-ray scanner and get rid of their bottled water that’s over 3 ounces before boarding an airplane knows what freedom we’ve lost.  For many, the anger will never go away.

But, we have to move on.  We have no other choice.  Time eases pain for some, and just postpones it for others.  But it’s all part of life… all part of the deal.  We cannot harbor bitterness and hate, or we become the people who stripped our way of life from us on September 11th.  We have to get through it, and pray for those who take a little longer.