9/11 Remembered

Why today, you may ask? No special reason. This isn't September 11th, it's not an anniversary or a day for remembrance. But it is Memorial Day Weekend. And thanks to a post by my cousin, Eric, I find myself enthralled, and horrified all over again, by the images of 9/11. Eric posted this article from the New York CBS station yesterday morning. I only saw it this morning in my Facebook newsfeed. It led me into 3 hours of watching TV coverage of that fateful day in 2001.

On the tenth anniversary, I dedicated two blog posts--Nine-Eleven (9/9/11) and Never Forget (9/10/11)--to commemorate the melancholy of such tragedy and senseless loss. It was all so surreal, the television coverage that morning, the feeling that we were under a coordinated terrorist attack and the way it hit home because I worked across the street from the State Capitol and the President's brother. Watching it this morning, including the 1-hour, 58-minute uncut footage from New York's NBC4, brought it all back so vividly despite the fact that nearly 16 years have passed since it happened.

Sixteen years ago, on that day, I'd only had my first child for a couple of weeks. She had turned two months old that very day, but we got her at 6-weeks. She's adopted. I was at work in the Claude Pepper Building in downtown Tallahassee, just starting my day with Legislative Services. It must have been around 9:00 that I began watching live coverage on MSNBC from my desktop in my cubicle. I remember a couple of coworkers watching over my shoulder in horrified disbelief, or they may have been in the cubicle opposite mine, but I remember their reactions either way.

I took an early break to get to where I could watch live coverage on the televisions in the mall food court, a safe distance from the Capitol complex. I received the call not to come back to the office, as it had been shut down and evacuated. There was no immediate threat, but panic had stricken the nation and no less so the home of Governor Jeb Bush. I went home early that day and was glued to CNN and MSNBC. I'll never forget the images that day of the twin towers burning, of the second plane careening into the WTC-South Tower, of the towers falling one at a time, of the enormous dust cloud that enveloped all of lower Manhattan and the ghosts that emerged from it covering their mouths, their faces. Like I said, it was all so surreal, like nothing I'd ever seen before.

Watching the news footage on YouTube this morning brought all the feelings back so vividly that I had to write about it. I created the image at the top of this post as a memorial. I figured what better way to honor those who were killed in cold blood by enemies of the State than with a tribute on Memorial Day Weekend. This spontaneous post is dedicated to all the men and women who died that day, 9/11/01, on commercial airliners, in the World Trade Center, in the line of duty and at the Pentagon. It is also dedicated to the brave men and women of our Armed Forces who sacrificed all in the months and years that followed. As the image above suggests, may we never, ever forget.