story1917.xml

story1917.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-08

I was 15, just starting highschool. I woke up that morning thinking, "augh, another day at school". But boy was I wrong. I was in English class at the time when the principal came on the intercome, explaining the events that had just happened a few minutes ago. I was shocked. The girl I was talking to just a second ago started to cry because her father was schedualed to be on fight 11 that morning to LA. I tried to comfort her as best I could but there was nothing I could do. She later found out that her father had missed his flight. We were greatly relieved. They cancelled the rest of our classes for the day to watch the news. I started watching a few minutes before the second plane hit. I saw it all live. I felt my eyes starting to swell. I knew my uncle worked there but I had a feeling he was safe. Rumors were flying that it was some sort of terrorist attack and that the Prudential building here in Boston was hit by a plane too and was on fire. I had close friends with parents who worked there and they were very upset. One girl fainted. I didn't know what was happening. I went back to the TVs after that with one of my good friends. We watched the towers collapse live. We were afraid something might happen to the school. We weren't allowed to leave, so all we could do was wait. After school was finally over, I mother picked me up. "You know what happened today?" she asked. "Yes, do you know if Uncle Allen is ok?" "He's fine, but the Coffeys are missing". We had known the Coffeys for a long time. My father went to college with them. I didn't know them real well, but we were friends. I figured that maybe they were in a hospital and were safe, but later on in the week, we found out they didn't make it. That was the first time I saw my father cry. I cried too. At about 5pm that night, on 9-11, I got a call from a Lieutenant from my Civil Air Patrol Squadron. He told me that we were called to spend the night at Logan airport to make sure no planes took off. This whole thing was chaos. Everyone in my squadron was taking shifts for sleeping. I was with my good friend Chris and a couple other guys. The place had news crews and military personal everywhere. I didnt get much sleep that night, maybe only 1 hour. I thought mostly about my missing friends, the people who lost their lives, why this happened and why wasn't I one of the people who died today. They turned all the TVs to President Bush addressing the nation. My eyes started to swell again, but I managed to keep back the tears. I was so confused about this whole thing, I had no idea what had happened. I couldn't believe it.