nmah5550.xml

nmah5550.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-06-20

I was getting ready to go to work in my husband's medical office. My father, who was babysitting my children that day, walked into my house and immediately told me that there had been an accident in New York City at the World Trade Center. He and I turned on the television, which had focused on a live video feed of the WTC, which was in flames. As we watched, my children came into the room to see what was going on. I don't know why, but I had a sense of foreboding that told me to get them out of the room. I did not want them to be afraid to go inside tall buildings when we visited Cleveland. Immediately after they left the room, my father and I watched the second plane crash into the WTC. Like the rest of the world who witnessed this happen live, we could not believe what we had just seen on my TV. My children must have heard our cries, because they came running back into the room to see what was going on. All my father and I could do was cry and hold them tight. I kept telling them everything was going to be alright, but I knew that the world would not ever be the same. A little while later, I called my husband at his office and told him to turn on the TV. He said that his patients had already told him what was going on, and that they were watching in the waiting room. I hung up the phone and told him I would be leaving soon. As I walked outside, my garbage man was emptying our trash. I asked him if he knew about what had happened...he did not. I told him to go inside my house to watch. He stayed for two hours and watched with my Dad.
In the meantime, I went to the office. By the time I got there, the Pentagon was now up in flames. We watched in between patients. My father called several times because he was worried about my brother who worked in the KeyBank building in Cleveland. Apparently, another plane had been hijacked and it was heading towards Cleveland. The KeyBank building is the tallest building in Cleveland, and it had been evacuated. My father could not reach my brother on his cellphone, and he was frantic. As this was going on, we heard local news reports of a plane flying very low over Akron and Youngstown. People were calling the local radio stations with their eyewitness accounts of this plane, and the schools were all locked down. Eventually, we came to realize that this was the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. My brother eventually reached my father and told of the chaos in Cleveland. I worked the rest of the day at the office and then spent the next week glued to the TV.

My life has been dramatically changed since 9/11. Honestly, I now live each day like it could be my last on earth. I am more wary, cautious, and afraid when I travel. I never gave much consideration to my personal security as an American citizen...especially with respect to the prospect of being a terrorist victim on American soil. Now I am constantly aware of the terrorism threat. I am extremely saddened that my children will probably not know a US that is free of terrorism threats...for example, they will not know what it is like to walk into a museum without a bag search and won't remember trips to Washington, DC in which the city is not ringed in security barriers and fencing.

The victims and heroes of 9/11 should not ever be forgotten. They were innocent pawns and sacrificed their lives for the sake of fanatic hatred of American ideals and democratic ways. We need to remember the victims faces and their stories.

Yes, I have flown the American flag since 9/11. I took down my Cleveland Indians flag and replaced it with an American flag banner that has flown ever since. After seeing the flag over the WTC and the flag that hung from the Pentagon walls, I have much more deeper feelings than I did before regarding the American flag.