story161.xml

story161.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-03-06

The morning of 9-11 I was getting ready to go to the inauguration of a new President at my college. It started out like any other morning, and ended in a day with images and stories that will forever be burned in my memory. I can't seem to shake the image of one of the planes as it is about to crash into one of the Twin Towers. I didn't even know anything had happened until I turned on my car stereo. Even after hearing the news I was still sort of unaware of what was happenng in my Country. I remember calling my mom back home and asking her what happened and she was crying and yelling "someone crashed a plane into the World Trade Center towers in New York." "Do what?" was my immediate reaction. I just thought that she didn't have the facts stright. I was on my way to pick up a friend and when i got there she was in a panic becasue her dad is a pilot for AA and was he was on a trip in that region of the U.S. Neither one of us wanted to leave but reluctantly we went to school. The rest of the day and many after that was spent glued in front of the T.V. watching what had tragicly happend in a country where I thought something of that horrific natue could never occur. How naive I was. I watched as Fireman, Policeman, and EMT personnel rushed selflessly into th rubble at Ground Zero. I watched as people ran FROM the site and these heroes ran INTO the tragedy. But then as the airwaves flooded with stories and eyewitness accounts of what was happning I realized that it wasn't just the trained people who were risking and losing their lives,it was peolple like the passengers of Flight 93 stuggling for control. It was people like Father Mike who perished while giving last rites to a fallen rescue worker. Even everyday people who were nowehere near the sites were standing in lines for hours at a time to donate blood and give money. I saw the American flag, and continue to see it up in windows and on flag poles it isn't even the 4th of July or Veterans day. Even now almost 6 onths later I still get very emotional about. I have collected many magazines,e-mails, books and pictures of that fateful day and the days that followed. I have done this to ensure that I will never forget the heroic and unselfish acts of so many people who on that morning were just ordinary people become not just extraordinary people but imerge as America's heros-they are my heros. They made my realize what a privilege it is to live in the United States of America-something that i hadn't ever really known. And something that I never want to forget. May God bless each and everyone of us. And to my heroes-thank you.