None of us will forget where we were on that fatefull day, and the events are burned deep into our psyche. Little did I know as I arrived for work that within a very short time the world that I knew would be gone forever.
Shortly after arriving at work I was sitting in my office preparing for a course I would be delivering that day when the phone rang. It was Christine, sounding somewhat distressed. "An airplane has hit the World trade tower. They think it might be terrorists". she told me. I was stunned but initially I thought that it was more likely to be an accident than a terrorist attack. As I started to express that opinion you her, she interupted with "OH MY GOD!!! Another one has just hit the other tower". With that we both fell silent, too stunned for words, I don't think we said another word to each other for the rest of the call. There were no words to describe the hooror we both felt, her more than me due to watching it live on TV. Yet even without those visual images the shock in her voice sent chills up my spine. I don't know how long I would have sat there in stunned silence had I not been called to start the training course.
Training seemed the farthest thing from my mind, the subject matter seemed so insignificant, in the the span of that one phone call the World had changed. Even at this early stage with so little information you could feel that change. News of the event had started to spread around the office and everywhere you looked you could see the disbelief and confusion. We were 5000+ miles away from ground zero and yet we felt the impact within minutes, we felt it in our hearts, and even though we were isolated in the office, we knew that it was being felt the World over. It was as if the world was screaming, or maybe it was just my own screams that I could not utter that I could hear inside.
This was already the worst thing that had ever happened in my lifetime, the act itself was so dispicable that it was almost impossible to comprehend. I couldn't help but imagine the terror felt by the passengers, and the people in the plane, and the people of New York. And yet there was still worse to come. News then came in that another plane had hit the Pentagon. I was already numb from the World trade center, and already my emotions were starting to overload. Then we heard that there were apparently at least 2 more planes, and for the first time I heard that 757's were involved. Please God don't let it be BBall's 757, I did not know which airports the planes came from or which route if any BBall was flying that day but I could not get my mind away from that possibility that he was in one of those remaining 757's. Already overloaded with emotions there was no room for these new emotions and I wanted to scream. The news sites were now being hammered and it became difficult to find out what was happening. Little did I know that this was a blessing.
Througout the rest of the day I struggled to finish the training course although any attempts at getting any real training done had long since been abandoned. We were now just trying to get through the day and hold in emotions that were trying to bust out of every heart and mind in the room. Every spare minute was spent trying to get news of BBall, or news of what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic, or simply trying to comprehend what was happening and to suppress the emotions that were desperately seeking a release. When news came through of the Towers collapse several peoplewere no longer able to supress those emotions and the office was a mix of stunned silence, and the sound of crying. I can't explain it, but that silence was one of the loudest sounds I've ever heard.
Once the working day was over I was in a rush to get home, I had already had some tearful calls from Christine, alone at home trying to handle those emotions alone whilst witnessing horrors that so far I had been protected from. I was unable to get home quickly though, because those emotions were no longer willing to be surpressed and half way home I had to pull my car over and I began to cry, and those tears did not want to stop. Eventually I was able to compose myself and drive home.
I arrived home and hugged Christine as if our lives depended on it. Then as I watched the events of the day on the news I was hit by the full horror of what had happened. Despite all the emotions I had felt during the day I was not prepared for what I saw. Images that caused me to have anxiety attacks for weeks if not months after the event and that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Images that I will not describe here. We all saw those images and not a one of us will ever forget them. For the first time I felt an emotion that had not yet surface, anger, such intense anger and yet it had nowhere to go and just had to share space with the fear, and the screams and the hate and the pain that I felt as my heart felt as if it would explode out of my chest. I felt a lifetimes worth of emotions that day, and along with those feelings I felt something else, I felt American. It did not matter that the events happened 5000 miles away, I felt for those people as if it were my own home town, there was no boundary wide enough to lessen the sheer horror.
On that day I became an American, and every decent, caring human being the world over became Americans too.
Stunning words there Mark, said it all and I feel the same way too - I'm from Scotland and the emotions you described so well mirrored how I felt on that day - I had come home from Nightshift and usually sleep all day though for some reason that day I woke up and could not get back to sleep - I turned on the news to try and send myself back to sleep and found myself watching live as the second plane hit............................
I thought I was watching the wrong channel - this could NOT be the news, sadly I was wrong. I felt such a mix of emotions that day and will never forget that day for the rest of my life.
As for becoming an American that day - I couldn't have agreed more.
Take care all
The Day I Became An American
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