Remembering 9/11...

Fred says he won't post his thoughts about 9/11 on this day and I respect that, but I think it's worthy of a few minutes of "Where were you/What were you thinking".

I was scheduled to fly to Philadelphia for a quarterly manager's meeting at 2:00PM on 9/11/01. My wife was home pregnant with our little girl. I came to work to wrap up a few things before I headed to the airport. At the fateful point in the morning as news began pour in all over the wire, one of my employees ran into my office and said, "Dude! Someone just flew an airplane into the the WTC". After confirming that it wasn't a prank the guys were playing on me, the first thought that came to mind was I hope my buddy Jackson, his brother, and family are alright and immediately began to dial to confirm. Already the circuits were jammed. As I put the phone back into its' cradle, the second plane hit. HOLY SHIT! Then the reports of the Pentagon, Pennsylvania, and all the other false pandemonium that comes from being sneak attacked in such a way. I told my employees that if they had family in NYC that they could leave and go home, otherwise I asked them to be prepared to ship any needed communications gear that our network might need to get back up and running in DC and Manhattan.

I went home for lunch and watched news reports and came back to the office and filled my employees in on anything I thought they might not have gotten from the radio or the internet. Still no word from NYC friends. I knew it might be a while. By the end of the day, I had received confirmation that my NYC friends were safe. I had also heard too many stories of people being incinerated in their cubicles and offices and seen far too much video of people leaping to their deaths from twin tower windows. As my wife and I comforted each other that evening, I definitely recognized the events of the day as ones that would change the world forever. Before I left the office, I received a call from a friendly administrator at a company that I did business with in the UK. She just called to offer her condolences to me. I didn't know what to say. I was unhurt and my family and friends were safe, but I told her thank you and that I appreciated her call. I guess nobody else in the world knew what to do or say either.

I know I want all those responsible for the attack and those that supported and continue to support this kind of thing gone from this earth. If we've spent 6 years arguing about whether our government response has been carried out competently or incompetently, I hope the one thing we can agree on is that.

Other than that, I don't have much to add and have really spent little time looking for 9/11 retrospectives outside of my blogroll. I will leave you this link to Bobby's poignant post.