nmah5490.xml

nmah5490.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-04-12

On 9/11 I was on vacation to visit DC. I was riding the DC Metro yellow line and noticed smoke in the distance. This I felt was a large fire, never could I imagine wht it really was. Just before we got to the Pentagon City stop an announcement was made stating due to a National emergency we would have to leave the Metro and walk up to the street level. When we reached the street I was amazed at the number of people milling around, trying to use the payphone or non working cellphones. In retrospect I am proud to be a part of this mass of people. Everyone stayed calm through out this ordeal. Everyone was helpful and caring. One lady was trying to reach her husband that worked at the Pentagon and my sister offered her cell to this woman. Of course no cells were working. While we talked with her the crowd seems to part and her husband walked up. Amazing. We spent some time walking that day until we discovered the Metro was running again. Made it back to our hotel. The next day we decided to leave the city and visit friends in Norfolk for the rest of the vacation.

I have always been patriotic, but 9/11 has enhanced this in me. For the last 5 years I have been setting aside a weeks vacation to visit Washington DC and this last year I decided to visit DC on Sept 11, 2002 to honor the victims and show the terrorist that I am a proud and unafraid American. I was saddened that so few visitors were on the Mall that day.

That we (American) are a very resiliant people.

I love the American flag, but am ashamed of the people that don't know the correct way to fly OLD GLORY. You do not hang it from the antenna of your car or put a large flag on the back of your pickup truck. The flag gets tattered and ruined. I hurts to see our national flag ripped and torn.