My 9-11 Memories

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

That day I was at work, just like any other day. I was sitting at my desk working at my computer. The big boss secretary-- Linda, came walking over very quickly to me and said that a plane had just flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. She is a jokester anyway so I did not believe her. She was always saying all sorts of crazy things! What she was saying was just too fantastic and crazy. Just too unbelieveable. She said she was just in the breakroom and saw it on the tv so she ran to tell me. Yeah! Right!
"Linda, get out of here, you crazy girl!"

That is what I said to her. She said that she was not joking. "A plane just flew into the WTC tower."

I really looked at her and saw that she was serious. She again said that a plane had flown into one of the towers in New York. I got up and went to the breakroom and the tv was on. Linda did not follow me. She was busy telling others the same thing she told me.

There was noone in the break room but me at that time. I saw the first tower in ruins, smoke, fire, the news channels had cut into every morning tv show. I was in total shock and disbelief. More and more employees came into the breakroom and we all watched in silence. We all saw the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower. We all just stood around looking. We did not know what to say or what to do. Some left the breakroom to call their family members who were at home.

I did that. My parents are retired and I called them and told them to turn the tv on. I told them America was under attack. They were still in bed. I went back to the break room and the staff was no longer just standing around the tv. Most had taken seats and just about all the tables were filled up. We had seating for about 60.

The morning as far as work goes was a wash. All who could fit into that breakroom spent the next 2 hours watching that little tv. Some of the employees who were transplanted yankees from New York cried. One woman in particular cried her eyes out in the breakroom. She was heartbroken. She is a drama queen anyway and is way over the top in everything, so many employees were rolling their eyes at all her carrying on that morning.

I was numb. I was not in New York, but something inside me knew that things would not be the same. How could that happen? We were living in the greatest country in the world and the fleas of the world were biting us. Biting us hard.

At noon or so, the big boss said that we must go back to our desk and get some work done. The woman who was crying so hysterically was sent home. Her boss told me she was useless and would get no work out of her that day. I went home and watched the evening news, the late night news and news late into the wee hours of the morning.

On the evening news there was in interview with the person/owner of the rental car company who said that he rented them cars but no bells and whistles went off. I recall him saying that everything seemed ok and that they were insured with ______ insurance company. That was my employer. We insured their cars. Our corporate/marketing people must have heard that because, that was the first and the last time our company name was mentioned. The next times I heard or saw the interview it always ended just before the rental agent got to the part they were insured with.

Well. I had to verify that. Did we really insured them? Everyone has to have car insurance so they had to be insured with someone. I had written down all those long unpronouncable names filled with too many vowels and consonants. Mohamed Atta. Waleed M. Alshehri and all the others.... I wrote them all down. All of the ones who lived in Florida, I looked up in our computer system the next day. There they all were. We did have them as clients.

I asked around if anyone else had heard that news clip I saw with the rental car company. Many did but they only saw the first part of the interview and not the whole clip. I mentioned the interview to the big bosses and that I had looked them up in the computer and sure enough, there they were. About an hour later we got a very important email (flagged that way) from home office that no employees were to do any sort of investigation on their own into computer files regarding these clients. In addition the memo also stated that our company was doing everything possible to cooperate with the FBI. My boss made it a special point to come to my desk to be sure that I did not go into any of those computer files again.

I never did go back to those files again. We have corporate police that monitor our computers anyway given the business that we are in. I am sure that if I had, my computer id would be appearing on some list somewhere. That was the end of that. We never got anymore emails as to what was happening with corporate and the FBI.

We had an office that was located in the WTC so we did loose employees that terrible morning. I also have a part time job with another company 2 weekends a month. That company lost 2 employees as well. They were on one of the planes. Those two employees were on vacation and were going to visit another employee in another state who worked at another branch office.

While I was not there in New York, I felt exposed and in a way less free than before. We now had to be careful when traveling and the thoughts of "terrorism" are woven within the everyday fibers of my life.

My heart goes out to all the families who lost loved ones. They are truly the innocent victims of that day. Some of them became heroes in their own right by preventing planes from reaching other targets. I know those families will never be the same. I will not be either. Today I still feel exposed. I feel I need to look over my shoulder. Innocent looking people are not really so innocent.

Something that contributes to my feeling of unrest was something a friend of mine told me. He worked part time at the same company I do. He is a bigwig in the military...secret missions to Iraq, Afghanistan...the whole nine yards. We have a military facility where he works and he said that there are Al Qaeda prisoners in our sleepy little town. That was an eye opening statement. What? Does that now make our city a good looking target? That was very alarming to me. He said that of course he could say very little, but that they were here under lock and key. A lock and key complete with lasers and grids that could kill a roach or a deer with pinpoint accuracy if it made the mistake of wandering into the grid area.

He also gave me his view on the siutation. I asked him if this would all be over soon. He said no.. he said it will most likely NEVER be over.

It would never be over because we are not really fighting the people, but the religious belief and that will never die. He says he felt we would be fighting that war for at least 10 years. We will never be able to get our troops out of there. I think he was right. I do not see how we can get out of there. If we just say..okay we are going home now, chaos will follow. Chaos over there and chaos over here as we become a target again. The price of freedom is not free. I feel like I am paying a price everyday. Not as big a price as those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 or those fighting for freedom everyday. But still a price.

If you have a post about September 11, please put your link here so that others may share in the rememberance of that day and the effect it has had on all of us.

Carnivals||9-11