My Thoughts on the 9/11 Five Years Later
I feel like I should mention something on this day. For the most part, we've all moved on and continued to toil away at our insignificant lives. And we should, but I feel like saying something about this event because I believe if has fundamentally changed who I am. It has fundamentally changed who we are as a people.
I remember exactly where I was. I was in my car driving to my office at Nortel on this tuesday morning and listening to Sports Radio 1310 The Ticket. They normally turn away from the sports pages and do a funny bit at 8:40am... and this day was no exception. Directly after that, they noticed on one of the TVs in their studio that the news had broken in and was showing the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. One of those towers had a big hole in it and was billowing smoke. They began talking about it and speculating what happened, when about 15 minutes later, they witnessed another plane smash into the other tower. If it wasn't obvious before this, it was obvious now, we had suffered a terrorist attack of epic proportions. I was on a daily call with members of the project team I was working... Also on that call were members of the team from Toronto, Montreal, and Chateau Dunn France, in addition to Nashville, and Richardson. I couldn't tell you what happened on that call, because I was busy paying attention to the ABC, CNN, or whatever live feed I could on that day. In fact, I got no work done. My co-worker and friend, Brad, was in the cube across from me, and he got no work done. It's as if the world had stopped.
Nothing like that had ever affected me as much as this even did on that day. Granted other tragedies in my lifetime were not on quite so grand a scale. I remember the Waco incident with the Branch Dividians. It was tragic, but I really didn't think about it. And the bombing in Oklahoma City a year later (I believe), didn't stop me down.
I remember being numb, angry, and sad all at once. For the next several days, I hurried home from work to watch what CNN was reporting on. And at some point, I don't remember when exactly, maybe a couple of days later, I just began to weep... I was by myself and the weight of what had happened to us as a nation and really, the world, hit me and I began to cry and did so for at least a solid 15 minutes. There was no thing on the news, no story or imagery or rememberence that made me do it, it just happened.
Over the months and years after that, bits and pieces of the truth and our new reality have come out and made me very angry at the people in charge of our country. A stolen election in Florida, in 2000 seemed to be amplified now. And I can't say that things have changed for the better since 9/11, but I feel like we (as a people) and our government should have learned something from this and come away stronger. But I don't feel that has happened. And, it's a sad thing. I don't want to get too into politics here, we can do that another day, but I would like you to take 5 minutes to watch the video I've linked from CrooksandLiars.com of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's commentary on 9/11 on this day, the 5th anniversary of 9/11. He is far more eloquent than I could ever hope to be.
Take Care.