This is an e-mail reprint that reflected my sentiments on Wednesday.
Mom called.
“Have you listened to the radio this morning?”
“Yes. My radio alarm clock just went off a couple of minutes ago. It turns itself off at nine.”
“Turn your radio back on. A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center! NY City is being attacked!”
“Who are we at war with? We weren’t at war with anyone last night.”
“I don’t know!”
“Well--what are the markings on the plane?”
“It’s American!”
“American? Americans wouldn’t do that! Would they?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I hope not--what is the insignia on the plane?”
“I don’t think there was an insignia.”
“What does the radio say?”
“I don’t know. I turned the radio off.”
“Calm down, I’m turning on the radio now. Let’s see what’s happening.” I calmly repeated the words as I heard them. “Eyewitnesses says that the commercial airliner turned straight into the Word Trade Center. There is a ball a fire coming from the tower, a lot of smoke. People are jumping from the top of the building. People are running from the building. When someone falls, someone stops, picks them back up and they continue to run. There is another commercial flight headed for the second tower. A second airplane just crashed into the other tower. NY City is under attack.”
“I turned my radio back on.” Mom interrupted. “I’m listening to the same broadcast.”
“Part of the first tower is starting to collapse.”
We listened in horror as people continued to run past the reporter. Smoke continued to billow. The beautiful morning had been blotted out. The world was an eerie gray as debris fell from the tower. The reporter was relocated to twelve blocks away. We decided that we probably had talked long enough and hung up.
I turned on the television, in hopes that what I was listening to would not be as scary as what I was imagining. I called Mom back. NBC and CBS were broadcasting a slide of smoke billowing out of the first tower. On ABC a cameraman calmly explained about the frightening ghostly world of ashes that surrounded people running with cell phones in hand.
Mom and I held our phones in silence. Reports came in about a plane hitting the Pentagon, evacuating the White House, the President in Florida, another crash in the middle of nowhere eighty mile south of Pittsburgh—perhaps unrelated. We decided that we could save on the phone bill if we were not going to say anything anyway.
I watched as the stations showed the plane crashing into the second tower for the first time. “That was a commercial jet. There were lots of people on that plane. That’s an office building! There are thousands of people in that building!”
The reporter on the radio announced “the World Trade Center has an estimated 80 thousand people in it daily.”
I thought of my brother who got hit by car years ago, and cried as I thought about 80 thousand people feeling the same way that I did.
Then I called Mom. All the airports were closed. Tall buildings, and City Hall were evacuated. There were still fifty flights in the air.
I walked down the quiet street, to a restaurant over the bridge. I did not want eat lunch alone. Saint Mark's church doors were open even though it was Tuesday. A sign said "Open for prayer."
Other people had come into the restaurant who did not want to eat lunch alone. Although the attack had ended an hour ago, we watched the broadcast together. "Who are we at war with?" I asked.
Two high school girls stared at me with fear in their eyes. "We still don't know." one of them answered.
"We just can't take on the whole Middle East!" I said. "If we do, then we will be the same as whoever did that is."
I watched the news to find out about the plane that crashed in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. I felt like there were suppose to be others. That was probably the act of heroism that stopped the others but the news only was covering the Pentagon and the Twin Towers.
Reports from Washington: The White House had been evacuated. The plane that had crashed into the Pentagon was still burning. President Bush addressed the nation first from Louisiana and then from Nebraska.
Evening came. Meetings were canceled. Blood drives were asked to slow down. The airforce base was called to full alert. Reports from NY: The fires were still burning. Both towers were leveled. The amount of casualties was unthinkable. They were doing there best to attend to the living.
The planes were not carrying explosives. That the 18 terrorist had chosen the biggest commercial flights going the longest distance. These planes had to carry a large amount of fuel. The hijackers had used commercial flights and turned them into a living bomb.
Reports from Pennsylvania: A man had tried to call from the bathroom using his cell phone 911. He kept trying to explain that this was not a hoax. Help! The plain is being hijacked.
A message had been intercepted to Bin Laden that two of the targets had been hit. The FBI was conducting their investigation.
Someone was bombing Afghanistan. Was it us? No, that’s right Afghanistan is in the middle of a civil war.
Based on cell phone calls from the rear of the plane, the plane crash in Pennsylvania was a act of heroism.
Here are some links from World Trade Tribute.com that shows what happened. The links below require that you have flash installed on your computer.
Imagine by Yellow7 Design [ www.yellow7.com ]
God Bless the USA by Yellow7 Design [ www.yellow7.com ]
Timo's tribute to 911 Remembering 911 was compiled a year later done independently from World Trade Tribute.
This is an e-mail reprint that reflected my sentiments on Wednesday.