REMEMBERING BACK TO SEPTEMBER 11, 2001:
I was in my office in Minneapolis, conversing with a client in New York City when the NPR news reported that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. I thought it was some goofball in a Cesna. Then the client broke off the call and the news became a lot more horrifying. Two planes slammed into the towers and then the news about the Pentagon came in. I told Mike Schwegman and he was stunned. Next, we heard about the plane that went down in Pennsylvania, a plane that was headed for the White House, both towers falling and a lot of other unbelievable stories. I could not get through the internet traffic to check the news on cnn or msnbc or fox so I went to Sky News and the BBC. I did not want to see the actual film of the towers getting hit and falling..the still photos that I saw on the internet were bad enough. I will never forget one shot of several people hanging outside of one of the towers. They died that day.
I called a good friend in Boston to make sure that he was okay. My brother Steve called me. We both tried to reach my brother Russell. Russell had been on a plane to Los Vegas for a trade show. When the planes were grounded, his plane landed in Omaha, Nebraska. He was able to rent a car and drove back to Michigan. My brother Milo, in Miama, later found that he lived close to one of the hijackers. He also lived near the first anthrax attack. My boyfriend, Nathan, is an airline captain. His plane was grounded. He had a difficult time making it home. He has never looked at his passengers the same way since Sept. 11. His industry went into a depression because of it.
I worked that day because there was nothing I could do. I tracked events by checking internet news sources and got personal views by reading infirmation.com. The historical significance of those postings should not be underestimated. After work, I went to aerobics class with my friends to have some kind of normal routine.
That clearly was an act of war and the other side views it as a war of attrition. I wish we had better leadership.
7:57:54 PM 
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