We Will Never Forget

Today marks the 13th anniversary of a tragic day in the US' history, and we still stand strong with pride.

Before 9/11/01, I remember hearing people reminiscence about the assassination of President Kennedy - of course I couldn't join in with those tales, because I wasn't even thought of in 1963, not even a twinkle in my father's eye.  Today, it's stories about where they were during this fateful event.  And I will never forget this day, even though I wasn't directly affected by it.

I was running a little late that morning, frequent bathroom breaks through the night while 5 months pregnant does that to a lady.  I hadn't turned on the news before I left, which isn't unusual, because I think a lot of news is just full of gossip and not always based on proven truth.  On the car ride to work, I had a CD in my stereo, so there wasn't even a broadcast on.  Everything seemed just like every other day.  When I got to work around 9 am, I just started working and nothing seemed out of the ordinary; all of my coworkers and I were gabbing about the every day stuff.  Then the manager came in about 30 minutes later, and he was all flustered talking about this horrible plane crash in New York City.  So we all turned on the tiny TV in the break room, and watched as they replayed endlessly the events of two planes flying into the World Trade Towers.  We were all glued to the newscast, as breaking news arrived that there had been another plane crash into the Pentagon.

I don't remember much of anything else that day, just the replaying of the those events.  Fortunately it was a slow day, so work wasn't horribly impacted, although had it been everyone would have understood.  On the ride from my first job to my second job, I tried to call my then husband, who had just a few days earlier been sent up to northern Virginia for some training exercises near Quantico (he was a US Marine), but all lines were busy.  I tried calling my in-laws, who lived up in that area, and again I received an "all lines are busy" tone - I figured so many people were trying to reach out to their loved ones that the phone lines were flooded.  About the middle of my shift, at the second job, I received a phone call from my husband, telling me that he was fine, and that they were coming home early due to this events.

As the days passed, bases were locked down; what used to take me 15 minutes to drive him to work on Camp Lejeune, ending up taking almost 2 hours.  Every 10th car in line was pulled out, and checked thoroughly.  IDs were checked at the gate (when they used to just wave you on if you had an authorized sticker).  Who knew if there was going to be another attack, and where it might be.  It was a scary time.

Do you want to share your memory of 9/11?  How did it affect you?