8 years since yesterday… today

So I got a little odd with my titles, oh well.

It seems like it was just yesterday that I was sitting in my office in Texas, and a message popped up that a plane had hit one of the towers in NYC. I hopped online to verify my friends statement but could not get ANYTHING to pull up, the internet was crawling. We pulled the TV out of the break room to see if the local news was reporting something about this accident.

Turned out it was on every single channel we could almost see… there was no Cable in the break room so we were making due with the Spanish local news. We sat there for what seemed like hours, watching the smoke billow out of the side of the tower… wondering who hit the tower and why this had happened. It HAD to have been an accident… no one would ram a plane into a building like this intentionally… would they?

Then there came our concrete proof that this WAS no accident. Out of the corner of the screen, a second plane darted from out of nowhere and impacted the second tower. We were dumfounded… glued to the floor, unsure if we woke up this morning in a movie plot or a practical joke. I don’t think the reality of the situation struck many of us until we had seen it replayed over 50 times.

I called my wife, who was still asleep at home to tell her what was happening and that I would be coming home within the hour to be with my family and try to make sense of all of this. About that time, reports came in of an impact at the Pentagon and rumors of more planes that had supposedly lost radio contact. (at the time I recall people speculating that as many as 8 planes were hijacked)

My boss decided right then that family was more important than our job duties that day, and demanded that we all head home for the day.

To the 2,996 people who died that day, innocent bystanders… family… loved ones and heroes… I will never forget and I sincerely hope that We the People will never forget either.