story1602.xml
Title
story1602.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-08-30
911DA Story: Story
I was at work in my office, what was once a bedroom in an old farm house that has now been converted into the offices of a landscape contractor. There were at least two radios playing in the building, so we heard reports of the first plane hitting the tower on the radio.
My boss has a little TV in his office, so we all crowded in there to see what we could hardly imagine. I remember having such a sick feeling looking at the smoking tower, knowing that a whole planeload of innocent people had just died.
The phone rang and I headed back to my office to take the call. A few moments later I heard my co-workers groan loudly as they watched the second plant hit the tower. I returned to watch the first replay of the second plane hitting the tower. My mind could not seem to grasp the horror of it at first. Later, I had such a sick helpless feeling as I wondered what mankind had come to for people to be willing to use a whole planeload of innocents as a weapon aimed at an entire skyscraper full of more innocents! The very idea was unthinkable. As the radio announcers spoke of suicide hijackers I wondered at such fanatacism as to give your life in order to commit mass murder.
I spent the day, as well as the next few months, on the verge of tears. Disappointed in humanity, greiving for the families of the victims, resigned to the inevitable knee jerk reactions of helpless politicians. I realized immediately that this was not the end of the world. Terrorist attacks have been planned before (and continue to be planned now, I'm sure) but our intelligence agencies usually prevent them. We do have the best intelligence agencies in the world, afterall. Still, even Americans are only human. Error is inevitable in imperfect beings.
The flags began appearing on September 12th and as I stopped at lunch to buy a couple for my car, I knew that we were going to be alright. As "God Bless America" and "United We Stand" signs appeared I was ever so proud of our country. Sure, the politicians are reacting with the expected unconstitutional infringements on our liberties, (thus,giving the terrorists their only real victory), but most of us understand that only by standing united and remaining true to ourselves can we defeat terrorism.
Americans aquitted ourselves well, our firefighters and rescue workers, even our regular citizens, like those on the flight who found out what was going on and tried to take the plane back, all showed the integrity, honor and heroism of Americans to the world.
In actuality, I believe it has never been safer to fly than now, because before, no one could conceive of a highjacker who wanted to use civilian airplanes as weapons against civilian targets, now we know better and forewarned is forearmed, there is no planeful of Americans which would allow this type of tradgedy to happen again.
United We Stand
God Bless America
My boss has a little TV in his office, so we all crowded in there to see what we could hardly imagine. I remember having such a sick feeling looking at the smoking tower, knowing that a whole planeload of innocent people had just died.
The phone rang and I headed back to my office to take the call. A few moments later I heard my co-workers groan loudly as they watched the second plant hit the tower. I returned to watch the first replay of the second plane hitting the tower. My mind could not seem to grasp the horror of it at first. Later, I had such a sick helpless feeling as I wondered what mankind had come to for people to be willing to use a whole planeload of innocents as a weapon aimed at an entire skyscraper full of more innocents! The very idea was unthinkable. As the radio announcers spoke of suicide hijackers I wondered at such fanatacism as to give your life in order to commit mass murder.
I spent the day, as well as the next few months, on the verge of tears. Disappointed in humanity, greiving for the families of the victims, resigned to the inevitable knee jerk reactions of helpless politicians. I realized immediately that this was not the end of the world. Terrorist attacks have been planned before (and continue to be planned now, I'm sure) but our intelligence agencies usually prevent them. We do have the best intelligence agencies in the world, afterall. Still, even Americans are only human. Error is inevitable in imperfect beings.
The flags began appearing on September 12th and as I stopped at lunch to buy a couple for my car, I knew that we were going to be alright. As "God Bless America" and "United We Stand" signs appeared I was ever so proud of our country. Sure, the politicians are reacting with the expected unconstitutional infringements on our liberties, (thus,giving the terrorists their only real victory), but most of us understand that only by standing united and remaining true to ourselves can we defeat terrorism.
Americans aquitted ourselves well, our firefighters and rescue workers, even our regular citizens, like those on the flight who found out what was going on and tried to take the plane back, all showed the integrity, honor and heroism of Americans to the world.
In actuality, I believe it has never been safer to fly than now, because before, no one could conceive of a highjacker who wanted to use civilian airplanes as weapons against civilian targets, now we know better and forewarned is forearmed, there is no planeful of Americans which would allow this type of tradgedy to happen again.
United We Stand
God Bless America
Collection
Citation
“story1602.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 19, 2026, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/7253.