nmah3769.xml

nmah3769.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I am an equities trader and was in my office in Chicago, IL watching CNBC with my wife (who was a trader at the time also) and several friends, simply going about my business of the morning. I noticed the futures markets going down and immediately said to anyone who could hear "What is going on?" I then learned that a plane hit the World Trade Center. My wife's family is largely from the New York area and I have a lot of family and many friends there as well so after the first plane, we immediately began calling. I had read up on Osama bin Laden several months earlier and felt this was his work so I immediately worried for the safety of everybody I knew. We saw the 2nd plane hit on CNBC as well and the horrible Pentagon crash on CNBC too.

I live in a high rise and i am much more cautious about everybody around me, both in the building and away from me in all places. On a positive side, it further strengthened the tight family and friend ties that I have.

a) the mixed feelings of helplessness and determination that most Americans felt that day.
b) the resilience and feeling of coming out of this as a unified people in an attempt to stop all of these horrific actions going on in America.

I was fairly patriotic before 9/11/01 and I'm even more so now...I always had a distinct feeling of prid about our flag and it has only been enhanced. Our nation is not angelic (the peoples or the government), but it is an incredible place to be and I may be biased, but I think it's the greatest nation on the planet and that the U.S. flag is the most beautiful of all of the world's flag.