story1297.xml

story1297.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-20

My name's Joe. I work for Modern Continental Construction as a material expediter/receiver on the Route 3 Expansion project in northeast Massachusetts. To be honest, it was like any other day around here. I was busy processing orders and doing my best to restrain myself from beheading the next guy who asked me where his order of nuts and bolts was. At around 9:30 my phone rings, and instead of picking it up..I put it on speaker.

It's my girlfriend Diane. With a very shaky voice, the only words out of her mouth were "A plane just flew into the World Trade Center".

I asked her "What the hell are you talking about?"

She just repeated the refrain that would become the mantra for the office in the next few hours. I told her that I would check the internet and see what's going and that I would talk to her later. To be honest, the first thing that popped into my head was that a plane flying out of Logan International had lost control and crashed into the World Trade Center in Boston. It's not unlikely since the take off and landing patterns for Logan fly right over it. By now, there were a couple of people gathering around my cubicle, since everybody heard my conversation over the speaker phone. So I log on to the web and check out boston.com (the Boston Globe's website), and sure enough....there's the tower, belching that sickening black smoke.

At the time, there really was no idea that it was a terrorist attack. But I knew in my heart of hearts. The picture told the story....a clear beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. "There's no way in hell that was pilot error", I thought to myself.

Honestly, I couldn't tell you any more specific beyond that. I just remember the emotions that I felt...and the reactions of others. I remember the fear, the anger, the confusion. For the rest of the day...we sat glued to the TV in the conference room....or to our desks with our computers locked on to CNN or MSNBC or Fox.

I don't know how I'm going to feel come the anniversary. A year ago...I spoke to my grandmother (God rest her soul) about it. At the time, she was recovering from cancer surgery, but the prognosis wasn't good. She never thought she would see something like again in her lifetime, having been through Pearl Harbor. It was different back then, on the 1 year anniversary, the country was at war with a known enemy. There was a feeling that something was being done about it. The world was united against evil. Today, we're fighting an unknown enemy who does not value their own life or those of others. There's a feeling of incompleteness......