story1033.xml

story1033.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-16

I was asleep in my dorm when one of the clock radio alarms went off to wake us up. I didn't do anything different just slowly started to get moving. The next thing I know is my roommate gets a strange email from his dad seeing if he was alright and that he couldn't reach him on the phone. All I remember is that it mentioned that something had happened. I then turned on the TV and the first thing I saw was the Pentagon billowing out smoke. Just sitting there in amazement I didn't know what to do. Finally, I picked up the phone and called my mother just to check in. She was worried about me because where I'm located is only about 15 miles from the Pentagon. She tried to get me to stay at my room for the time being, but I had to go to class to figure out what was going on and if it was even still on for the day. I left and will never forget something what happened next. You could hear the sound of a plane over head and at that moment about 30 people around me all stopped and looked up. It was obviously an airforce fighter, but to see the effect it had was unbelievable. Class was cancelled, as I had thought, so a friend and I went over to the Johnson Center and joined the giant crowd of people huddled around the TV to see what was going on.