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Where Were You When You Heard the News on 9-11?
By Julie | September 10, 2008
Tomorrow is Sep 11th, the seven-year anniversary of the hijacked planes that took down the World Trade Center, hit the Pentagon, and crashed in Pennsylvania.
When I was in school, several times we were given the assignment to ask the adults where they were when JFK was shot. I always asked my parents, and some of the employees from their business. I liked those assignments because they were easy. I didn’t have to work at it, there was nothing to read, nothing to memorize. I couldn’t get the answers wrong. I never really liked school, so easy assignments requiring little effort on my part were my favorite. With this one all I had to do was ask and listen. I could do that!
Every person I ever asked just knew. I didn’t have to prod them; they didn’t pause and say, “Um, let me think about that.” They listened to my question and then instantly told me what they were doing 25 to 30 years earlier when they heard the news. I wondered what would be significant in my lifetime to make whole groups of people instantly recall one event?
Then the morning of Sep 11, 2001 came. The alarm clock woke me up for work; I planned to go in later that day. I was about to hit the snooze button when the DJ’s words stopped me… a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. I was glad they mentioned New York, I wasn’t sure if the Trade Center was in New York or Chicago. I said something to Marc about how sad it was a pilot would make such a mistake. We went to the living room and turned on the TV, just in time to see the second plane hit the second tower. The announcers were going crazy in disbelief… another plane had struck? What was going on? They showed a replay from another angle, and we realized this was no accident! I hurried to get ready for work so I wouldn’t be late; we had a big shipment to be next day aired that day. As I got out of the shower I heard the announcer say the Pentagon had just been hit. Marc’s sister and her fiancé were staying with us; they got up and we all watched in shock, not really knowing what to say.
Every radio station was covering the “attacks” on the way to work. No music was playing, only news of hijacked airplanes and innocent people dying on them or in their targets. The first tower fell before I got work. I listened to people screaming as they watched the debris carrying living and dead bodies to the ground. The crunching and screaming sounds were terrible to hear. And all I could do was drive.
When I got to work no one was working. Everyone huddled around a TV watching the wreckage. An announcement: all planes were being grounded… but there were still some in the air. Bush was on his way to Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, an hour from me, and minutes from some of my family. I hated them announcing that; I didn’t want the perpetrators getting any ideas so close to my home. Then I felt guilty, the people in New York didn’t want them in their neighborhoods either. I watched as the second tower fell, in a heap of grinding, unforgettable noise and dust. The screams were terrible to hear, as people ran for safety dust covered it all, pretending nothing existed.
We asked if we needed to get to work. “Why?” We were told, “Nothing is getting next day aired today. The airlines are shut down.” So we watched the TV until the last plane went down in Pennsylvania. Eventually we found our desks, did a little work, and checked regularly for more breaking news. I saw one article about Middle Eastern Muslims cheering on the attacks. Why would anyone cheer on the most cowardly act I’d ever witnessed? That’s what they were, complete cowards!
Later I knew this was my generation’s “Who shot JFK.” When I ask, “Where were you on 9-11,” no one pauses to try to remember, they dive right in, as if we all want to share our stories, we all want to tell our parts in something we wish would never have happened but changed our world. I think we were all in a haze for a few days, maybe even weeks after the attacks, like we were asking, “Why?” without really saying anything. I watched ever piece of news I could find on the attacks, the dead, the missing, those who lived through it. I cried for them. Then a few days later I was going to work, and a song came on the radio. But it wasn’t a song; it was music, with a man talking over it, the narrator was supposed to be God. And in that time of our nation’s emotions going crazy, nothing touched more than that song. I heard it a few times immediately following the attacks, then on the first and second anniversary of 9-11. Then, last year I found it in a video. In the words God tells all of us, no matter who we are, or where we were, He was there. So, where were you when you heard the news on 9-11?
Oh, here’s the video…
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