Where I Was On 9/11

Although I have slackened off a bit from the practice in recent years, I used to regularly sign the "overtime-desired list" at my job, which for the most of my 27-year tenure at the post office, has been spent working the late night, early morning "graveyard" shift.  Usually I have gotten off from work around 7:30 to 8 AM...just in time to combat heavy morning rush hour and school traffic...groan.  But one morning 13 years ago, I was spared this fate when, to my immediate chagrin (although I ultimately WANTED the extra work and pay) I was told to stay a couple of hours longer in the morning to process some mail, along with the next shift's work crew, on the flat-sorting machine.  Oh, well, I was tired but I HAD signed that overtime-list, I said to myself, as I went on my allotted break into what my post office humorously calls a "cafeteria" (tables and seats and a few vending machines...and a television).  I got myself a much-needed coffee and plopped into one of the hard plastic seats in the back of the room to drink it and shut my eyes for a few minutes.  But as I sat there, I noticed that the few others in the room were riveted to the TV, which was showing a skyscraper with a big, gaping and smoking hole near its top.  I asked around and, apparently, a small plane had just accidentally collided with one of the World Trade Center towers, resulting in the incredible picture. I finished my break and returned to work, remarking to my colleague Tim Thrasher what had happened.  He then suddenly raced off to see for himself...and returned momentarily with new, very sobering news: a second plane, a jet airliner, had hit the other tower.  Instantly, we all knew that this was a terrorist attack.  Tom Metz, another "flat-sorter", asked me who I thought was responsible, and I replied with the immediately obvious: Bin Laden.

I finished my overtime shift that morning and was about to leave when somebody came running in to announce that the Pentagon had been hit.  Then I knew that it was time to quickly get my ass home and watch the TV...which I did in time to see the North Tower collapse (the South Tower had already done so by this time). While all this was going on, nobody except the perpetrators (and probably only a few of them) knew of the scope of these attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001.  So there was a lot of fear and anxiety regarding what would happen next.  But as the day wore on, it became more clear that there were four passenger jets hijacked that morning, as it was later revealed, by Arab Muslim-extremist terrorists, chiefly from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with the intention of hitting prominent (and symbolic) American structures.  The attack that failed, the fabled "Let's Roll" Flight 93, had been meant to hit either the US Capitol building or the White House itself, but had reportedly been thwarted by its passengers who, through their cell phones, had learned that other planes had been flown into buildings and that this wasn't a simple hijacking to patiently sit through, endure, and be eventually released...so they staged a bold uprising against the hijackers.  That flight ended in a crash in an open field in western Pennsylvania...

I appreciate how MSNBC continues, each year on 9/11, to show NBC's coverage of the admittedly horrible events as they happened, with announcers Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, and others weighing in on it all. Now, in the evening on 9/11/14, the news stations are talking about the 9/11 attacks. But unfortunately, other than the History Channel, I saw very little else on TV this morning (other than some short segments) to mark the attacks...which should never be forgotten...