That day five years ago, I was driving from home, 3 miles from the Pentagon, to my job on the Quantico Marine Corps Base when the confusing, conflicting news reports started coming over the radio. Just before I pulled into the gate the plane had hit the Pentagon, and I told the awful news to the Marine guard at the gate. We listened to the radio all day in shocked disbelief. The I-95 interstate was closed to all traffic most of the day, so I had to wait at work until it reopened. No phone calls could go through, but email was working to get in touch with people, while we desperately tried to get news from friends in New York City.
When I finally drove back home at the end of the day, I-95 was strangely deserted. The skies were bizarrely silent, with all planes grounded. The Pentagon was still burning when I passed, a long plume of smoke drifting up into the sky.
We will always remember.
4 comments:
And so will I, even from 3000 miles away.
We are about 60 miles from NYC and first saw it reported on the TV in our customer waiting room at the car dealership where I work.
Shock filled the space as bodies crowded into the small room to hear the tragic news, I happened to be watching when the second plane flew into the 2nd tower and I could not make my mind believe my eyes.
The dealership closed hours later and we were all sent home, worried, in shock, concerned about our friends and loved ones, afraid for what might be next, if there would be a next.
They kept the kids in school all day and I remember standing on my back deck waiting for my son to come home to the now questionable safty of my arms. The world was silent, no planes, even the birds were mute.
I will never forget.
I will always remember.
I put my Grade One daughter on the bus and the driver said "Turn on your T.V. - a plane has hit the World Trade Center in New York." I didn't understand what was going on at first, but I watched the live coverage in absolute horror and disbelief. I folded laundry and prayed, and when I saw each tower go down my heart sank with shock and grief.
We are nowhere near New York, yet our whole world changed that day.
Ah, Nance...
I was at my Mom's house in New Jersey, mowing the lawn. My Mom was so ill, cancer would finally take her 18 days later. Her Hospice volunteer came and told me the World Trade Towers were gone, hit by a plane.
I thought, "No, the World Trade Center isn't GONE. Even if you hit it with a plane... it isn't GONE."
Earlier, I'd been lying in bed, trying to decide if I wanted to go jogging, or wait until after rush hour, when the planes hit. From where my Mom's house is, I might even have heard the planes fly by before they struck.
I didn't even know. Before I realised anything was happening, they were gone. GONE.
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