lc_story261.xml

lc_story261.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-01-16

I was on my way to work in Alexandria after dropping my son off at school after an early-morning dentist appt. I had been listening to a book on tape and hadn't heard the news. My husband called me and I put on the radio and I thought at first that it must have been a small plane, a ridiculous accident, didn't yet understand the scope. By the time I got to Alexandria, there was a report about the Pentagon, mention of a bombing at the State Dep't; it felt like the world was coming to an end.We could see smoke from the Pentagon from the dock behind the art center. Several people were watching TV in one of the studios, the building was not yet open and it was very quiet. We watched the footage of the planes hitting the buildings and were stunned by the collapses. It felt like we watched for hours. I spoke to my husband, tried to reach my brother in Manhattan, and went home.

I have so many memories of that day. I remember sitting on the couch w/Larry for hours watching the same images over and over. I remember not being able to not watch. I remember calling friends and family here and in NY. I remember finding out that my husband's partner had been on the plane that crashed int the Pentagon. I remember the little miracles: that our neighbor had had a sore throat and had not gone to his office at the Pentagon that morning, that my brother did not, as he did almost every other morning, go up to his offices in the World Trade Center before heading to his uptown office.

Sept. 11 woke us up to a terrible new reality. We no longer have the luxury of pretending that terrorist attacks cannot happen in this country, that we are immune from the kind of attacks that have been happening in the middle east for decades. I have been affected by the stories, each incredibly poignant, of the survivors, of those killed. I am moved by each account, the families left behind, the heroism of those who tried to get people out in NY and here at the Pentagon, the horror of those running, trying to get out. I am held captive by those images.