As long as I live, I shall never forget. I was in my classroom watching television that morning while grading papers, since my students were in Washington D.C. on their class trip. I watched with disbelief, so stunned I couldn't even call out to the other teachers. Then came the news about the attack on the Pentagon and my heart went cold. Our students were not far from there. Not long after that I lost my teaching job, then my parish ministry, then my home. Someone asked me if I felt post-traumatic stress syndrome. I answered that I felt something, but was too numb to tell what it was. But God is good and brings life from the ashes. We who have put on Christ always have cause to hope!
After running the night desk and waking up in the morning in my hotel room, I rolled over and turned CNN on as the reporters onsite were trying to comprehend what just happened.
Then I saw it -- the second plane come across a corner of the screen and hit the second tower. And listened as it slowly (time was in slow motion) dawned on the reporters what had just happened.
For two years after that I was addicted to CNN; could not get enough of watching, watching, watching. The world had gone nuts and I was the spectator.
I was at work and my co-worker, Michelle, had the 'annoying' TV on as usual, sudden new of a plane crash into the trade tower and it was on fire broke into 'Regis.' I attempted to get work down when she shouts about the second plane, then reports of bomb in Washington, DC then finally clarification of the Pentagon then Michelle shouts as the first tower fell ... it was unreal, all I could do was pray the Lord's Prayer for no other words for prayer could come to mind.
I was in Germany, so it was in the afternoon. I had been at a parish council meeting that morning for the post chapel I was attending. Something happened at that meeting (that I won't go into here) that made it clear to me that I had to seperate myself. I stopped at a friend's home on my way to a PTSA meeting at the high school on post to tell her the results of the meeting. Her husband phoned and told her that a plane had hit one of the towers. We imagined a small plane and wondered how it could have done that. I went to the school where one of the teachers had on her TV - we watched in disbelief as the second plane hit. The PTSA meeting convened, but was later paused when the principal was called out for a phone call. When he came back he reported to us that the Pentagon was hit. The meeting broke up as people rushed off to try to make phone calls to the United States. The post was locked down. I came home to find my living room filled with teens who lived elsewhere and hadn't taken the first buses home - glued to the TV. Schools were closed. I phoned a teacher I knew to see if she needed to stay with us, but around 6 PM they let people leave post. Only the intelligence people were at work and they were there round the clock. Provisions had been made to double up families who lived on the economy with those who lived on post, but we never had to implement those. We were all glued to our televisions watching the same loops over and over again for a week. There was nothing else on the few USA programs we received and for a while all the British stations we received were showing/talking about nothing else. In addition to our troops, we had German mounted police patrolling the perimeter of the instillation. When we dared to venture out several days later, our gate was overflowing with flowers, vigil candles, and signs of support from the local German people.
The command chaplain was Russian Orthodox. I went to him and asked him to tell me about Orthodoxy. 9 months later I was chrismated. In my mind 9/11 will forever be associated with the deep spiritual grief I felt that day over the parish council decision. That impacted my life personally far more that the attacks on America.
Last night in our molebien prayers at church, our priest remembered "The New Martyrs of 9/11" and said that he is sure that they are surrounding the throne of God interceeding for us and America. What a wonderful image!
It started out like any other day, listening to the hijinx of the "Fox and Friends" crew on the morning the world changed. A puff piece interview was cut for a news alert showing the gaping mortal wound in the first tower. My co-workers and I, all pilots of differing ratings were considering what would put a commercial jet into a skyscraper. Was it a catastrophic hydraulic failure? A disabled pilot? As the fireball exploded from the second tower, we knew the answer.
With my employment in federal law enforcement, its sufficient to say that even the the smallest part of my job has been permanently colored by the events from six years ago.
As a private pilot myself, I couldn't help but wonder how an airplane could hit a building in the highly controlled airspace around NYC.
We watched the news from my boss's office at USDA HQ in Washington DC when I saw what I thought was a helicopter flying around the WTC.
When the 'helicopter' hit the building, and it was clear that someone was deliverately flying airplanes into the WTC, we could hardly believe it.
Some time after the Pentagon was hit, we left DC and drove South down I-395 and saw the thick black smoke coming from the southwest side of the building. Then it REALLY hit home.
But the thing that stands out the most to me was the subsequent shutting down of all air traffic. The silence in the skies was just so strange.
And, like Catbird above, my activity as part of federal emergency operations was altered forever on that day.
I'd had just flown home to the DC area from California. Before I left for work in downtown DC that morning, I was waiting for the plummer to arrive. I remember hearing on the radio that a plane had hit the World Trade Center and since I couldn't see the pictures, assumed it was a small plane. I remember I went into the livingroom when the plummer arrived and turned on the television and watched that another plane had hit the other tower.
My plummer, who it turned out was born in Iraq and had immigrated to the US, came out of the kitchen and said to me, pointing at the TV, "Bin Laden."
7 comments:
As long as I live, I shall never forget. I was in my classroom watching television that morning while grading papers, since my students were in Washington D.C. on their class trip. I watched with disbelief, so stunned I couldn't even call out to the other teachers. Then came the news about the attack on the Pentagon and my heart went cold. Our students were not far from there. Not long after that I lost my teaching job, then my parish ministry, then my home. Someone asked me if I felt post-traumatic stress syndrome. I answered that I felt something, but was too numb to tell what it was. But God is good and brings life from the ashes. We who have put on Christ always have cause to hope!
After running the night desk and waking up in the morning in my hotel room, I rolled over and turned CNN on as the reporters onsite were trying to comprehend what just happened.
Then I saw it -- the second plane come across a corner of the screen and hit the second tower. And listened as it slowly (time was in slow motion) dawned on the reporters what had just happened.
For two years after that I was addicted to CNN; could not get enough of watching, watching, watching. The world had gone nuts and I was the spectator.
I was at work and my co-worker, Michelle, had the 'annoying' TV on as usual, sudden new of a plane crash into the trade tower and it was on fire broke into 'Regis.' I attempted to get work down when she shouts about the second plane, then reports of bomb in Washington, DC then finally clarification of the Pentagon then Michelle shouts as the first tower fell ... it was unreal, all I could do was pray the Lord's Prayer for no other words for prayer could come to mind.
I was in Germany, so it was in the afternoon. I had been at a parish council meeting that morning for the post chapel I was attending. Something happened at that meeting (that I won't go into here) that made it clear to me that I had to seperate myself. I stopped at a friend's home on my way to a PTSA meeting at the high school on post to tell her the results of the meeting. Her husband phoned and told her that a plane had hit one of the towers. We imagined a small plane and wondered how it could have done that. I went to the school where one of the teachers had on her TV - we watched in disbelief as the second plane hit. The PTSA meeting convened, but was later paused when the principal was called out for a phone call. When he came back he reported to us that the Pentagon was hit. The meeting broke up as people rushed off to try to make phone calls to the United States. The post was locked down. I came home to find my living room filled with teens who lived elsewhere and hadn't taken the first buses home - glued to the TV. Schools were closed. I phoned a teacher I knew to see if she needed to stay with us, but around 6 PM they let people leave post. Only the intelligence people were at work and they were there round the clock. Provisions had been made to double up families who lived on the economy with those who lived on post, but we never had to implement those. We were all glued to our televisions watching the same loops over and over again for a week. There was nothing else on the few USA programs we received and for a while all the British stations we received were showing/talking about nothing else. In addition to our troops, we had German mounted police patrolling the perimeter of the instillation. When we dared to venture out several days later, our gate was overflowing with flowers, vigil candles, and signs of support from the local German people.
The command chaplain was Russian Orthodox. I went to him and asked him to tell me about Orthodoxy. 9 months later I was chrismated. In my mind 9/11 will forever be associated with the deep spiritual grief I felt that day over the parish council decision. That impacted my life personally far more that the attacks on America.
Last night in our molebien prayers at church, our priest remembered "The New Martyrs of 9/11" and said that he is sure that they are surrounding the throne of God interceeding for us and America. What a wonderful image!
It started out like any other day, listening to the hijinx of the "Fox and Friends" crew on the morning the world changed. A puff piece interview was cut for a news alert showing the gaping mortal wound in the first tower. My co-workers and I, all pilots of differing ratings were considering what would put a commercial jet into a skyscraper. Was it a catastrophic hydraulic failure? A disabled pilot? As the fireball exploded from the second tower, we knew the answer.
With my employment in federal law enforcement, its sufficient to say that even the the smallest part of my job has been permanently colored by the events from six years ago.
May the LORD be swift to dry every tear.
As a private pilot myself, I couldn't help but wonder how an airplane could hit a building in the highly controlled airspace around NYC.
We watched the news from my boss's office at USDA HQ in Washington DC when I saw what I thought was a helicopter flying around the WTC.
When the 'helicopter' hit the building, and it was clear that someone was deliverately flying airplanes into the WTC, we could hardly believe it.
Some time after the Pentagon was hit, we left DC and drove South down I-395 and saw the thick black smoke coming from the southwest side of the building. Then it REALLY hit home.
But the thing that stands out the most to me was the subsequent shutting down of all air traffic. The silence in the skies was just so strange.
And, like Catbird above, my activity as part of federal emergency operations was altered forever on that day.
I'd had just flown home to the DC area from California. Before I left for work in downtown DC that morning, I was waiting for the plummer to arrive. I remember hearing on the radio that a plane had hit the World Trade Center and since I couldn't see the pictures, assumed it was a small plane. I remember I went into the livingroom when the plummer arrived and turned on the television and watched that another plane had hit the other tower.
My plummer, who it turned out was born in Iraq and had immigrated to the US, came out of the kitchen and said to me, pointing at the TV, "Bin Laden."
bb
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