September 11th, 2001 will be a day that will be remembered by everyone.
The country changed that day, and our lives will never be the same. The terrorist indeed did exactly what they wanted. They were able to invoke pandemonium on the United States. People rushed to gas stations in fear of gas shortages. The Government shut down all major transportation vehicles and closed all large buildings.
Here is my recollection of the day:
I arrived at work at 8:00 a.m. I was working at SFA Solutions at the time as a CRM Consultant. I had a 9:00 a.m. meeting at Menttium Corporation to discuss customization plans of their Oncontact CRM package. Brett Greenberg was to meet me their. Just as I was leaving, I got a tip from a co-worker that something had happend in NYC and an explosion had occurred.
I remember jumping on CNN and the network was slower than usual. So I jumped in my car and tuned into the local news station. It took me 40 minutes to get to the office building and when I meet Brett there, we just sat in our cars and listened to the news break. They explained that a Jet had collided with one of the towers and that the building was burning.
When finally peeled ourselves away from the radio and went into the client’s building for our engagement. As you can imagine, the employees at Menttium were not in a mood to discuss anything and we just sat by a radio that they had. I plugged in my laptop and followed the news on the major news websites. (CNN, Yahoo, etc.) I’ll never forget some of the pictures and video clips they showed that day. The video of the plane hitting and the huge fireball. The people jumping out of the windows to prevent burning to death. It was the worst even I have ever seen with my eyes. It seemed like the entire country stopped that day. Again, the terrorists had done everything they wanted.
Out of all those visual challenges, one thing sticks out the most. When I was at the client’s office I heard a woman crying out loud. I walked over to where the noise was coming from and two women were trying to comfort one of their co-workers. She was watching the footage on a small T.V. and she was crying and mumbling words that nobody could comprehend. We could not calm her down nor get her to stop crying. At that exact momemnt, I had flashbacks of watching peoples reaction to the Kennedy Assassination. I wonder if this is how people felt?
It is now 5 Years later and we are still seeing the effects of that day. Our transportation system has been re-vamped. We have gone through two wars and terrorism seems to be much closer to home than it was for me growing up. I do feel safer today than I did 5 years ago. I think a lot of great things have come out of the 9/11 attacks. I loved the way the country came together. I loved seeing people on bridges waving American flags as I drove under them.
I’m very thankful for all the men and women that were involved in search/rescue teams on that day. There were a lot of hereos that did/didn’t make it out of that rubble. I personally salute each and every one of them. I also thank the men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq. These people are protecting the freedoms that we take for granted and make us who we are. You are brave and we are proud.
