story5444.xml

story5444.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I live in Liverpool, it is a suburb of Syracuse. On the morning of 9.11.01, I was getting ready to go to a hair stylist's appointment. I turned on the radio for the news and the morning talk shows. It took a while for my brain to bend around the idea that we were under attack. I thought at first it was like _War of the Worlds_, fake. But then I turned on the tv and I saw.

I made the appointment only to be with other people, we were really scared. We thought it was the end of the world. My son was in school, and my husband at work.

I wanted to go down there (to Ground Zero) to help but I was currently under contract at a local hospital and my family needed me.

Two weeks later I found out that the first airplane that hit the tower held my cousin Madeline Amy Sweeney, (we called her Amygirl and I knew her as Amy Todd), who was a stewardess and an American Heroine, (my Dad had never checked his email). My Uncle Bill, her Dad, is a distinguished veteran who never believed he would lose his daughter in the line of duty. After that, the tape of her conversation was physically painful.

This event changed my worldview. It made me value freedom and liberty as never before and gave me an edge towards those who would take it for granted and dismiss it as secondary to their agenda and their lives.

I have not been to Ground Zero yet, although it is really not too far away. When I see it on tv, I still cry. I am very proud of my fellow citizens, especially the people of New York City. They demonstrate the American Spirit at its best. President Bush has earned my respect and admiration as has former Mayor Rudy Guiliani, and Gov. Pataki. On my birthday, as I renewed my driver's license, I changed my political party affiliation.