9-11, September 11, 2001, by Joseph Ochwat

From MemoryArchive

Who: Joseph Ochwat
What: 9/11 Attacks
When: September 11, 2001
Where: Columbus, Ohio

I'm sure every real American remembers where they were and what they were doing on that infamous day. Things we took for granted are no more. To get on a plane, people who can’t speak English, strip search our grandparents and you now need a passport to go to Canada..

I was in my office working on a not so critical project when we were called into my supervisor’s office to look at pictures of a building that a plane had just crashed into. We all assumed that there would be an investigation, careers ruined, and monies paid. With the appearance of the second plane and the devastation that followed life as we new it changed forever. Black became beautiful; off white and brown were the enemy. Looking back it’s hard to believe that we as nation were so naïve.

The individuals in the office responded with shock and disbelief but the words that lingered were “I can’t believe they would do this”. Our supervisor must have made the statement ten times if he said it once. It’s not that we didn’t have ample warning, but remember it was always in some other country, and we saw it on the “Boob Tube”. Now we looking at ourselves on the “Boob Tube” and we couldn’t believe it, and didn’t like it. The world that we saw on the 6 o’clock news is now ours.

Later that afternoon I was called into the supervisor’s office for what I assumed was an update. I was told by the same person, who had stated over and over “I can’t believe they would do this”, that my services were no longer needed. No explanation other than the business climate had changed and jobs had to be eliminated. Being on the job for less than 10 months you start to wonder if the no what a business climate is.

Being 56 yrs old an out of a job gives you a different perspective as to what is important. Fortunately things did work out for me but not without some soul searching. I had been an advocate of the Darwin Awards (The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who remove themselves from it in really stupid ways) but after the double dooms day event I went through, I have been looking for ways to extend this to leaders who would best serve the people by removing their genes from the pool. Think about it for it can’t get any worse, and it might be a benefit in the long run.

---

External Links:

List of the Victims of September 11