My story is much like everyone elses. I was going through my normal morning routine of eating breakfast with NPR on. It was just background noise, but something just didn't sound right, and when I really tuned in I heard "twin towers", "plane", "fire" and that got my attention. I ran over and turned the TV on to see the first tower billowing smoke. At that time everyone thought it was an accident, but as I sat there watching the talking head on TV give a live report from the roof of another building (with the towers in the background) the second plane hit and my jaw just about hit the floor.
As I kept watching more reports came in of other planes being hijacked. There where reports of planes going down on the Mall in Washington, D.C. (obviously false), one heading toward the White House, and phone calls from people on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania.
The reports of the plane that hit the Pentagon where overshadowed by the towers collapsing, but I later learned that a friend that I grew up with, who was in the Navy, was probably in the room that the plane hit as it plowed into the Pentagon. VERY sad as he had just gotten married. The story we all heard was that he was in his office (and probably would have been OK if he had stayed there), but moved to a conference room that had a TV where a few of his co-workers where watching what was happening to the Towers.
A lot of the stories of people calling in sick, getting stuck in traffic or on the subway, or just not going into work at the Towers for whatever reason are truely amazing.
It's an unbelievable tragedy, and everytime I see a documentary of that day I get angry and wonder why we haven't really done anything about finding the people who are responsible.
"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong, it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."
-Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
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