I was totally clueless about it until the early afternoon. It was my day off and I slept in. When I woke up I just dithered around the apartment...didnt turn on the TV or the radio. I took a shower around noon and then went to the bank. The drive-thru had notices up saying the bank was going to close early for some reason or another and I was curious about it but didn't think much of it. Then I went to the Dime Store and as I was getting my purchase rung up I asked the clerk if she knew what was going on with the bank. She said something about planes flying into a building in New York. I just thought whats the big deal??? Then I got in my car and turned on the radio and found out. I went to my Mom's to watch the news about it. It was totally surrealistic for me. It still is...really.

If you haven't seen United 93, I recommend it. The account of the events as they happened, as the powers that be realized the magntitude, it's really incredible, and hard to watch.

I was out and about inspecting unused guardshacks for the Navy and when I finished and returned to my workplace, I found everyone glued to the TV and the receptionist told me I'd better get in there. My first thought was I had missed a training lecture but the raw emotion flowing out of that room told me something bad was up.

I went in just as the second plane hit the other tower. My words were... "Oh SHIT!" then silent for another hour while I absorbed the events.

All at the same time, we ran for the phone, called our detailers and tried to get onto a a Med Fleet ship. Unsuccessfully, it turned out, as the rest of the armed forces had the same idea. We burned up the phone lines in Washington until they cut em off.

I wish I could have gotten back on my previous ship but it sailed that day.

My memories are of the hospital. Having spent an entire 14 hours enduring labor through the night, right around the time I was starting to feel the "push" urge...the doctor walked in and announced that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center and we were having a baby today. All of the concentration and meditation I had used to control the pain (it's not "pressure" like they said!) without meds, sort of dissipated and things felt very disconnected. The gravity of that statement he made didn't really hit me in that moment. Something about him being a doctor and my being in intense pain and ready to have my late-term baby led me to feel a momentary, annoyance at a doctor's use of arrogant high drama..."wait...what did he say?" A few hours later, in a percocet(sp?) induced haze, I remember laying on the hospital bed, while my son's father was out, getting groceries and gas. Tired and relieved, I turned on the television. "Hmm...this looks like an action movie." *flip channel* "What? The same movie on this channel, too?" *flip*flip*flip* "What the hell is going on?" Yeah, it was surreal for sure...and very sad. Recovering from a Cesarean in a hospital leaves one feeling a little sheltered, but also a little paranoid. I was wondering whether it was safe to go home after that. What a scary time. I feel fortunate that I have something to celebrate from that day, though.

At least you'll never forget his birthday.

So how is it for him having his birthday on this day? Does it have any affect at all?

The deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States was the Galveston (Texas) Hurricane of 1900, on September 8th.

Yeah, huh?

We don't really mention the coincidence to him much...we have talked about it with him, but the central focus has always been his birthday. He is aware that it is the same day and somehow I think it enhances the drama of the day for him. He still has a sense of solemness (is that a word?) about it, but that doesn't overwhelm his excitement about "turning 7" at this point.

I remember I was getting ready for work, and I had the news on. It was after the first tower had hit and they were showing the fire and reporting on it and then I saw the second plane hit live. I was like WTF!?!? And then the shocking realization that this was not an accident and that we were under attack sunk in. I was freaking out.

At that time I was teaching Microsoft certification classes at New Horizons. I called my uncle and my mom and woke them up and made them turn on the tv. I told them we were going to war.

It was really strange going to work and seeing no airplanes in the sky. Everything seemed like it was in slow motion that day. A lot of people were scared. Very few students actually showed up and those that did were more interested in whether or not more planes had hit.

I pulled up some streaming news, but the net was so congested with other people trying to do the same thing it was hard to get a feed.

I remember people were walking around quietly and sort of like zombies. About 3 or 4 days later, people were filling all the talk radio stations talking about dropping nukes on the middle-east. People were pissed and wanted someone....anyone to pay.

George W. Bush had already let the whole Bin Laden family leave the country and rather than go after the Saudis or Egyptians (15 of the 19 attackers were Saudi, and 4 were Egyptians), he started spreading lies about Iraq having WMDs and being an eminent threat to America even though the CIA told him this wasn't true. He was looking for a scapegoat, and he found it in Saddam Hussein.

That pretty much sums up my thoughts except I'd include the ghosts of those who died, too, in the hope that they have moved on by now. One of my strongest memories is watching the newscasters struggle to get a label for the events, a shortcut for future reference. They tried so many and then began drifting toward calling it "nine eleven". And hearing the bits of reporting you knew, were certain, would be scrubbed from future newscasts as they retold the story. Without scripts the poor dears were confused as to what they should say or not say. And the silence in the sky because commercial aircraft were grounded was the background music for it all.

People used to share stories like this about JFK, too. I never really understood the need to do this before 9/11.

I remember Challenger, too. I was sitting in class and the announcement came over the PA.

I was going from Art class to Geometry, and I heard about it. When I asked people, "Did you hear the space shuttle Challenger blew up?" They kept asking for the punchline. They thought I was joking.

I remember around this time the movie "The Day After" came out and they warned us that it would be traumatic and horrifying.

I amember when Reagan got shot...I was walking from track practice back to the HS and my friend yelled over and told me.

9/11 was an awful day. For the people personally affected, forgetting isn't an option. Continuing to use "Never Forget" as a political weapon is done though. It is time for America to stop bull-shitting herself. In terms of scale, worse things have been done to people, some of those things by Americans, they just weren't repeatedly watched on tv. I'm just going to thank any flamers in advance.

I think about that sometimes Griff, especially when a big natural disaster strikes, like the tsunami or the recent earthquakes in China... and the news reports are talking about 30,000 dead. That's more than ten times the number we lost in 9/11, and twenty times the number who died in Katrina. We can't even conceive of losing that many people in one event.