This was originally written on September 14th, 2001.
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SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
It was like something out of a movie.
Shortly before 9:00 a.m. yesterday morning, my wife called to tell me that I had forgotten to fill out some insurance forms for our new baby. It was a short discussion. The kind where you know you're in trouble, but can't do anything about it until later. I apologized for forgetting, and we hung up. Moments later, the phone rang again, the caller ID displaying our phone number. "What did I forget now?" was the first thought through my head.
I answered with a droning "Hello."
"Did you see what happened at the World Trade Center?" Our two-week-old baby was crying in the background.
"No. What?" I said, visions suddenly popping into my head of the 1993 bombing.
"A plane just crashed into it. It's on TV."
"What?" I launched my web browser and tried to get onto CNN.com.
"Oh my God! Another plane just crashed into the other building!"
For the next hour and a half, I moved between my desk, where I was listening to ABC's television broadcast via internet radio, and a conference room here at our office, where a small 13-inch TV was tuned to Channel 4. In that period of time, the emotions I felt swayed from anger to fear to grief. The thought that thousands of people were plunging to their deaths as the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed was overwhelming. Hot tears welled up in my eyes. It was as if the end of the world was happening right before my eyes.
The grief turned to anger when NBC suddenly switched over to shots of the burning, smoldering Pentagon. The very symbol of America's military might had been attacked. It was in that instant that I realized that our nation was forever changed. We are no longer invulnerable.
During this time, one consistent thought kept going through my head: What kind of a world is he going to be growing up in?
At 11:30, we were given the option to go home for the day. On the way, I began hearing eyewitness accounts from people who were at ground zero and barely escaped with their lives. The stories were riveting, frightening and miraculous all at the same time.
At home, I finally was able to see close-up the images that I had seen and heard about all morning. I still am in disbelief that the things I saw with my own two eyes were actually happening. Planes flying into buildings. People jumping to avoid death....only to find it below.
Buildings hundreds of stories tall, which have dominated the Manhattan skyline for my entire life, collapsing upon themselves and thousands of people. A skyline forever changed by cruel, cowardly and despicable acts of terrorism.
My wife and I were glued to the coverage until we went to bed last night. At 10:30, I had called her and told her to put a tape in the VCR and to begin recording. I am a student of history, and it was unfolding before my very eyes, so I wanted a record of it. I taped everything until 4:00 this morning.
In my lifetime, I have seen American tragedies such as the Challenger disaster and the Persian Gulf War. I have extensively studied the horrors of World War II and the political history of Europe. But yesterday....yesterday is the most horrific act I have ever been exposed to. Pearl Harbor pales in comparison, because it was a military action. These terrorists use innocent people to take thousands of innocent lives. At least with the Nazi Holocaust we knew who the perpetrators and victims were. We knew we had made a grave error in judgment by allowing Adolf Hitler to indulge his morbid fantasies of conquest.
In this case, we know the victims, but the perpetrators are too cowardly to step forward and claim responsibility. How can anyone, of any background, of any religion believe that this is an act of bravery. I was disturbed by what I saw in Palestine yesterday - people celebrating in the streets. Do these people think that Americans celebrate in the streets when Israel strikes at them?
I do not understand why other nations despise the United States. It seems to be all because of our support of Israel. I have not traveled all over the world as some have. I have not seen terrorism in other nations, other than what we see on television. But I have never treated anyone who is obviously from another country with any disdain, or exhibited any anger towards them. Yet I have been treated negatively by foreigners, simply because I am an American. Call it international racism, I guess. Yet it doesn't really bother me, I live in the greatest nation in the world. My faith in our way of life is second only to my faith in God.
This is America. I believe in mom, baseball and apple pie. I believe in our Constitution and its Amendments. I believe that, at some point, we will return to "normal." Our lives will go on, but they will be forever changed by the events of September 11, 2001.