nmah5286.xml
Title
nmah5286.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-11-15
NMAH Story: Story
A September 11 Perspective
by Grant Olan
I was nowhere near the scenes of attacks. Though I was in DC, I was on the other side of the city from the Pentagon. Yet, upon hearing of the attacks, I felt I couldnt be any closer to the scenes. Lest we forget, though we all hoped the scope of the attacks were limited, we had no knowledge of the extent of the plot at the timethe entire East Coast could have been a target.
I was at my desk for my current employer, Cafe Deluxe and Tortilla Coast Restaurants, when my co-worker, Heather, sitting catty-corner to me, got off the phone with her mother and turned around to announce a plane had collided into one of the WTC towers. The few of us in the office did not seem to think of it as anything other than a tragic accident. So, without much comment, we all turned back to our work.
We must have all been thinking about what happened because there was barely a peep until Heathers mom called again and she started crying. We all stopped, waited for her to put down the phone and tell us another plane crashed into the second tower. I immediately thought this is how it must have felt upon the news of John Kennedys assassination.
It wasnt until the benefit concert that the shock finally started to fade and the reconciliation process begin. When Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Bank kicked off the program with My City of Ruins, I knew everything was going to be all right, that Americans would feel the same way and pull together towards the common causes of compassion and humility.
September 11, while horrific and wicked, was a glorious wake up call. That made me prouder than ever to be an American.
by Grant Olan
I was nowhere near the scenes of attacks. Though I was in DC, I was on the other side of the city from the Pentagon. Yet, upon hearing of the attacks, I felt I couldnt be any closer to the scenes. Lest we forget, though we all hoped the scope of the attacks were limited, we had no knowledge of the extent of the plot at the timethe entire East Coast could have been a target.
I was at my desk for my current employer, Cafe Deluxe and Tortilla Coast Restaurants, when my co-worker, Heather, sitting catty-corner to me, got off the phone with her mother and turned around to announce a plane had collided into one of the WTC towers. The few of us in the office did not seem to think of it as anything other than a tragic accident. So, without much comment, we all turned back to our work.
We must have all been thinking about what happened because there was barely a peep until Heathers mom called again and she started crying. We all stopped, waited for her to put down the phone and tell us another plane crashed into the second tower. I immediately thought this is how it must have felt upon the news of John Kennedys assassination.
It wasnt until the benefit concert that the shock finally started to fade and the reconciliation process begin. When Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Bank kicked off the program with My City of Ruins, I knew everything was going to be all right, that Americans would feel the same way and pull together towards the common causes of compassion and humility.
September 11, while horrific and wicked, was a glorious wake up call. That made me prouder than ever to be an American.
NMAH Story: Life Changed
NMAH Story: Remembered
NMAH Story: Flag
Citation
“nmah5286.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed November 25, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/41849.