story1831.xml

story1831.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-06

I think what I will remember first about September 11 is how beautiful the weather was, in sharp contrast to the horrible events that unfolded that day. It was a picture-perfect autumnal morning, dry and sunny and clear.

I work at one of the museums on the Mall. It felt unusual to be riding the Metro that day, as I normally drive, but as it happened, having a car downtown would have been a liability.

When I stepped off the elevator around 9:00 a.m., a colleague called over her shoulder to me. "Did you hear that a plane just struck the World Trade Center?" I thought it must have been a small plane that went astray, but I pulled up the Post web site to see what the news was (no TV in our office). Several of us looked at the gaping hole in the north tower and wondered how large the plane must have been and whether it was an accident.

I called a brother in Ohio and asked him what was going on; he was almost in tears. "You can't believe this. It's so awful!! Another plane just hit the second tower! Oh, my God!" I asked to speak to Dad, a WWII vet, and his first words were, "This is worse than Pearl Harbor. My first concern was for my niece, a student at NYU, who I later learned was woken by the first crash and watched the second from her dorm window. I was so thankful a broken foot kept her home.

The rest of the morning is more images than a linear memory: my colleague assuring her mother on the phone, "No, Mom, calm down! It wasn't the Pentagon that was hit..it was the Trade Center."; a frantic call from my sister begging me to leave immediately as there were reports of a fire on the Mall; and soon a rumor that a fourth plane was only minutes from DC. It was at that point that my office mates and I left work.

We encountered an unsettlingly calm but impassible gridlock of cars leaving downtown. No one seemed to panic; it was as though all of us were shellshocked. With the subway closed, several work friends walked home (several miles in some cases), while I walked to my brother's office several blocks north of the Mall. I will always be grateful for the help and support of his colleagues in getting through that terrible day.

We later took the subway to Virginia and smelled the acrid smoke as we went through the Pentagon stop. No one spoke. We later attended an impromptu Mass at All Saints Church, where a United airlines attendant, still in uniform, sat in tears in the pew behind us. I later learned that my cousin, a Navy commander, lost 7 friends at the Pentagon; he had worked in the damaged section only two years earlier.

Of all my 9/11 memories, there is one that will always stand out for me. As I left work, I looked up into that crystal-clear morning and saw the moon, still visible in a cloudless blue sky, then turned my gaze down Constitution Avenue, where the Washington Monument was silhouetted by the smoke pouring from the Pentagon. I thought to myself, "It's a beautiful morning and my country's being attacked," and I broke into sobs. Our country would never be the same.

For the sake of the victims, their families, those who serve to protect our nation, and indeed for all of us, we must never forget.