9/11 Attack, 9/11, 2001, by anonymous

From MemoryArchive

Who: Anonymous
What: 9/11 Attacks
When: 9/11/2001
Where: N/A

My mom called me and woke me up about 10 AM EST. I didn't have to be at work early, so I was sleeping in. I answered the phone and she said to turn on the TV, they attacked New York. I put on CNN and watched the planes hit the buildings over and over again.

I drove to work, but we didn't work. We sat on the couch in my boss' living room, switching back and forth between Headline News and CNN and all the other channels. It didn't matter which one, they were all showing the same thing over and over. From different angles. From a tourist's camcorder, with a guy saying, "HOLY SHIT!" as the first plane hits. The people running from the dust cloud as the building collapses. Over and over.

We went out to lunch, everyone numbed, talked about driving to New York to help. No idea how, we just wanted to do something. I bought a book from the shop next door to the restaurant, and boss' wife was shocked that I could think of shopping right now. The extremely neat man with the affected lisp who ran the shop asked me what her problem was, and I told him that she's upset about the whole planes flying into buildings thing and doesn't see how I can think of shopping. He shrugged and said something to the effect of, "well, life goes on."

We drove by the blood donation place, but the line of cars was so long we couldn't even get close. We got some beer, all sat around and drank in front of the TV.

My boss and I would occasionally make sardonic remarks about whatever news footage or talking head was on TV, much to his wife's chagrin. There was footage of an unexplained fire in Kabul. A military spokesman was asked about the fire; he responded, "We have a number of contingency plans ready for any eventuality." Boss commented, "One of those contingency plans being, 'bomb Afghanistan'." I laughed. His wife was horrified that we could find levity in anything.

I went to bed that night horrified that there could be people so evil in the world who could do such a thing. Horrified at the ignorant rednecks who were going around blowing the heads off of Middle Eastern gas station owners in calm retribution. Every time I think I've seen the worst of humanity, I find out that there's more.

Co-opted from Wikipedia's Personal Experiences Page