nmah5641.xml

nmah5641.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-09-05

I was at work in Carrollton, Texas (a suburb of Dallas). I got something on my e-mail news alert that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in NYC. To tell you the truth, I wasn't even sure what the World Trade Center was. I thought maybe a small plane had hit. Then one of my co-worker's wife called him and told him it was all over the news. All of a sudden I was getting one news alert after the other, about NYC, the Pentagon, etc. I started to get really frightened. I thought America was suddenly being attacked without warning. I called my husband, who works at the same company as I do, and I was getting panicky. I wanted to go home and get our daughter out of school, but he convinced me that we needed to stay put. We went home for lunch as we always do and I turned on the news. Seeing those planes hit those huge buildings and seeing the towers fall filled me with horror. For days afterward, I felt intense grief and sadness. One evening at dinner, about a week after it happened, I just broke down and started sobbing, I felt so sad. I don't even know anyone in New York and have never been there, but I'm sure everyone else in the country who is NOT a New Yorker felt the same as I did. A certain innocence and bravado that all Americans had was taken away forever. Now I think, if it could happen in New York or Washington D.C., it could happen in Dallas, San Francisco, anywhere...

I watch airplanes a little more closely than I did before. My house is right in a flight-path for DFW Airport and I find myself looking up at them, trying to determine if they are okay. I'd rather drive than fly now.

That we as a country can never, ever let our guard down. We should never be as trusting as we were before. We must do everything and anything possible to prevent this horror from happening again.

Yes, we bought a flag almost immediately afterward. The flag means more to me than it did before. It's not just something you drag out on the 4th of July. It means "The United States of America" to me now. It's more than a symbol.