Remembering 9-11

It's been 8 years since that fateful day on September 11, 2001, but it seems like it just happened. Obama decided to try and eclipse the significance of 9-11 by declaring a "National Day of Service," and downplay the real threat that still exists in international terrorism. Ralph Peters, a journalist from The New York Post expressed his outrage at denigrating the memory of 9-11 in his article today titled "Betraying our Dead." Fortunately, there are too many of us who cannot forget that day. Here's what I remember: I worked in the engineering department of a television cable company on September 11, 2001. We had a live video feed into our conference room, and we sat glued to the television as we watched the horror. I said to my colleagues, "Those people should get out of there. What if the buildings fall down?" Everyone in the room looked at me like I was crazy. Twenty minutes later the first tower came crashing down. I was totally numb. The whole scene was unbelievable. We all sat there frozen for what seemed like an eternity. Later I walked out of the conference room, and I saw one of the engineers who was a foreign national from Jordan. He sat at his desk staring at nothing. I could tell he was disturbed. Some of the other engineers came out of the conference room. I said to them, "Guys, we have to go talk to him. He probably thinks we hate him." So a few of us went over to see how he was doing. There was an uncomfortable silence, so I blurted out, "Hey we know you don't approve of what happened, and nobody thinks bad of you." He looked very relieved and said that what those terrorists did was very evil. The news began to come out about United Flight 93, and we began to be really concerned. The flight was headed our way. Our company sent all non-operations people home for the day. The schools sent students home, and the Mayor of Pittsburgh ordered the evacuation of downtown. Nobody knew how big this terrorist plot was. I went to my home on a very high hill and most of the neighborhood stood out on their lawns watching the sky. Everyone had this idea if we saw United 93 flying, we could tell the police, so it could be located (the terrorist pilots had turned off the location beacon by then). People were telling their children, "We mustn't be afraid. If they make us afraid, the terrorists win." After awhile we saw a big smoke plume off to the east. We thought that United 93 has probably crashed, but we didn't find out until later that the plane had crashed over in the next county (Somerset). September 11 reminds of why our Armed Forces are overseas fighting terrorists, and keeping America safe. September 11 compels me to express my appreciation to the members of the US Military who worked tirelessly to keep our nation safe. Thank you for your service!