September 11

Today marks the 6th anniversary of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as the failed attempt with flight 93. It was a terribly sad event both for the reason of the lose of life and the realization that we could be attacked at home. Today we should all take a moment and really appreciate what we have here. We Never Forget, and I don't think we should either. I will always remember that day, like it was last week. It was a Tuesday, like today, and on the way to work I remember the radio saying it was national 9-1-1 day because of the date, and I thought that was funny because today would probably be the least used day of the year for 9-1-1, but boy was I wrong. I remember hearing about the first plane when I was setting in a QS9000 meeting and one of the people from the other plant who had come for a prep meeting got a phone call from his Mom saying that we were under attack. We kind of blew it off at first because we didn't have all of the details. Then she called back and said both of the World Trade Centers had been hit. It didn't really sink in and what happened next was kind of a blur until I walked into my trailer/office and saw the TV set up and it showed the towers falling and I said 'Oh my God they fell'. And there were two people in there watching and they just kind of nodded, because they had already seen the footage several times. My heart kind of sunk because you knew it wasn't a real 'accident' but you didn't know what kind of attack it was going to be. I remember standing in the desulf control room at about 2:30 PM and the lights went out and I said 'we are under attack', and I really thought a power plant or lines or something had been taken out. Unfortunately we just had an inconsistent power supply at the coke plant, and within a few minutes or seconds the power was back on, and we were trying to sort out what happened. I don't remember exactly what failed, but I remember being there late that night and checking on the coverage that was playing in the conference room and later they showed bombs being set off in Afghanistan. I remember seeing them show the people in that general geographic location celebrating what had happened on American soil earlier in the day and I was anxious to see us retaliate because I didn't really know the extent of the attack on us, but it did kind of feel like we should be fighting. I hate that our children will never know what it was like living in a world before 9/11, you know going through the security at the airport with your family and them staying at the gate with you watching your plane take off, but after 6 years I'm not sure I really remember what it was like myself. I think people will always give up some personal freedom or time to feel safe, but I don't know that anyone will ever be totally free and totally safe ever again.