nmah2250.xml

nmah2250.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-10

I was at work in Reston, VA (just outside of Washington, DC) when I overheard several co-workers saying that the WTC had just been hit by a plane. At first I couldnt believe it. I got on a news site on my computer and was just absorbing it when the second plane hit. At that point I knew it wasnt an accident. We all knew something huge was happening to our nation. I had dropped my wife off earlier at Dulles International Airport and she was enroute to Chicago on a layover flight to the west coast. I tryed to call her cell phone but all circuits were down and she was probably still in the air. Meanwhile reports were coming in about one plane unaccounted for and another plane had just hit the Pentagon. My baby was staying with my parents (while my wife was traveling) who live about 1 mile from the Pentagon. I finaly got through to them. They didnt know what had just occured but had heard a loud noise and my father was seeing fighter aircraft flying over his home. My brother called me. He works about 3 miles from the Pentagon and saw the jet fly very low and very fast over his building. He and his co-workers were trying to figure out what was happening with the aircraft when his building was rocked by the explosion
of the plane hitting the Pentagon. By now I was becoming almost frantic in trying to contact my wife. We then heard about the plane that went down in PA. It seemed as though as soon as one piece of bad news came in another one would come in. My wife finally called fron Chicago. She had seen some of the news on a T.V. in the airport. All flights were grounded and then they turned off all the T.V.s in the airport. She was able to stay with friends and came home via train 4 days later. The luggage came home in 6 days. The scary thing is that she was going to take the flight that hit the Pentagon but changed it to the layover flight via Chicago.

I dont take anything for granted.

I remember how close I came to losing my wife.
I remember how shocked everyone was.
I remember how angry everyone was.
I remember how quiet it was (No flights by my Reston office or by my home)
I remember how proud I was (And still am) of how we all banded togather in the face of adversity ..All the people who gave of themselves to help others
I remember the people who died.

Of course I flew the flag.
My feelings about the (Our) flag have only grown stronger.
We live in the greatest nation on earth. Period.