nmah4929.xml

nmah4929.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-13

I am a resident of Washington, DC. Typically, I go to the gym in the morning and usually get to work by 930am. When I arrived at the office, I found my coworkers talking about two planes that had hit the World Trade Center. I assumed that perhaps two planes had collided near the WTC. Like most, I was shocked upon entering the conference room and seeing the footage of United Airlines 175 slamming into the South Tower. The gaping hole in the North Tower was shaped like a plane and left little doubt that these acts were deliberate. Everyone in the office was glued to the TV, NBC I believe, and at this point a reporter at the Pentagon said that he felt an explosion in the building. A coworker and myself walked to the lobby of our building at L'Enfant Plaza. You could feel the chaos building. The guards were losing their ability to control who entered and left the building. We walked outside to the fountain at the end of the plaza and watched in horror as the Pentagon burned across the Potomac. Someone nearby had their car radio playing. While listening to the reports, we heard a loud explosion and everyone instinctively hit the ground. To this day, I have no idea what that explosion was. Many people were debating about whether to leave for home or not. I told them that sometimes in life you have to make your own decisions and began to walk home. The city was complete gridlock. Every street between work and my apartment near Foggy Bottom was filled with cars that were not moving anywhere. Most shops had already closed. Helicopters and jets were buzzing overhead. People uncharacteristically chatted with strangers. By the time I made it home, I already had five messages from friends and family asking me to call and let them know I was okay. While returning a call to my mother, I stopped mid-sentence as I watched the South Tower collapse on television...

I'm more aggressive and proactive about making changes in my life rather than simply letting life happen.

September 11th was "the end of the innocence."

I've always been patriotic and have never needed the flag to demonstrate how I feel. Patriotism is something inside you.