story3648.xml

story3648.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

Tuesday morning I was getting ready for my only class of the day at IUPUI in Indianapolis, Indiana. I was listening to the radio like I normally do. I was catching bits and pieces of the morning show. But I heard an urgentcy in the female dj. She was saying something about an airplane hitting a building. I wasn't sure about it and wasn't really caring but I was drawn to the living room and turned on the tv. There it was. The replay of the first plane hitting the Towers. I was deviasted. Not knowing what to do I just stood there and staired. My phone rang and my roommate answered it. It was her mom telling her what happened. She got up and joined me in the living room. Both of us sat on the couch and gawked at the tv. It looked just a movie. A really bad movie. No one knew what was going on. Then it happened. We saw live on our local television channel the second plane hitting the other Tower. Astonished we both started to cry. We couldn't believe what we just saw. The entire day we sat and watched the television. We decided we were going to give blood like every other American. We seriously thought that there would be surviers, hurt and injuried. We jumped in our car and turned on the radio. Every station was tuned into some type of CNN-MSNBC station. No one played music. You can hear the dj's struggling to steady their voices and relay the latest news. No one knew what to do. We arrived at one of the downtown bloodbanks to find a huge line. After waiting an half hour to fill out paper work we were told that it would be a few hours before our number would be called. So, we left and went back to her parents house. Everyone was glued to the tv. My roommates younger brother didn't really understand what was going. He just knew that it was really bad and people are scared and crying. After a few hours and a few slices of pizza my roomy and I headed back to the bloodbank. We got there and we found out that they weren't even close to our number but we stayed. We sat in our chairs for 6 hours watching people come and go, people calling loved ones, people consoling each other. We sat and watched as the third plane hit the Pentagon and the fourth crash into an open feild in Penn. You can see horror, disbelief, saddness, confusion in the peoples faces around us. What's going on? Who is doing this to us? How can they do this to us? Why are they doing this to us? What do we do? What should I do? All these questions and more ran through all of our minds. I remember watching all the brave and courageous firefighters run into the buildings to help save people. All the men and women of different colors, races, religions join together to help save their fellow man. Not long after running into the buildings the one thing that didn't cross my mind and probably others. The first Tower fell. A scream and OH MY GOD came from my mouth. Tears immediately streamed from my eyes. All those people. All those firefighters that just ran in to help. All those people still stuck inside. Gone. All gone. Then the second Tower fell. I felt nothing. My body was numb. All emotion was taken from my body. I felt like I was floating outside my body and watching everything unfold before me. It was unreal. Thousands of people gone. Mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers, grandfathers, friends...all gone in matter of seconds. Thousands of lives destroyed. Then it hit me. What about Eric, Jamie my roommates, boyfriend? He's in Korea with the army. I hope he's okay. I hope he's not on alert now. Joel, oh Joel. My friend Sheila's boyfriend. He's a ranger and is called. Please God let him be safe. Thousands of questions ran through my head and nothing I can do to answer them. Midnight-One am. I'm finally home. Ahh..home. I'm safe or am I? My bed. Nothing can harm me in my bed. My blankets will protect me. My dreams will save me.

My parents always told me the most rememberable things that happen to them. When the first man landed on the moon or when JFK was shot. They remember what they were doing. They lived through the Korean and Vietnam War. They lived through Nixon and Watergate. They lived throught the Gulf War. I admired them for that. They got to live through history. History that I read in books. I never thought I would get to tell my children one day I remember when that I happen. I was doing this. But now I do. Somethine that no one wants to remember what day it was, what time, where they were, what they were doing, what they thought. I remember everything to this day a year later. Something I wish I don't get to share with my children.