Thoughts from Crow Cottage (My Main Blog.)

crowbelle's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nine-Eleven

Four Years From Nine-Eleven...

I was listening to late night radio last night, and the subject of the show was "Where were you when...?"

When the Twin Towers were so savagely attacked by our enemies four years ago today, where were you?

I was oblivious to it. I had been upstairs typing my medical reports, with earphones stuffed into my ears, typing along as I do every other day of the week. I'd been at it for maybe 4 or 5 hours already that morning.

It wasn't until around 11 a.m. that my phone rang and it was my friend Sandy from Iowa calling. Her voice sounded wild, and at first I couldn't quite understand what she was saying to me. Something about "The whole east coast is being attacked!"

I laughed it off at first, but she was very insistent...and that's when I started to get scared.

She told me they'd attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been hit...well, that got my attention!

I put the phone down and quickly ran into the other bedroom and turned on the tv. There was Tom Brokaw, looking like death warmed-over, and pictures of the Towers falling behind his image. I watched - stunned beyond belief!

I came back and talked to Sandy for another minute, but I had so much work left to type, I couldn't just stop doing it and watch TV or talk on the phone. So we said our goodbyes, good lucks, love and hugs, and hung up.

Now my body started uncontrollably shaking. Now I heard airplanes in the skies above Salem. Are they coming here to attack us, too?

I went to the window and craned my neck out to see what was going on. I just didn't know. And Paul, of course, was out on the ocean pulling lobster traps, so I couldn't contact him. Was he going to be safe out there, like a sitting duck? In the end, Paul didn't find out until he came ashore for the day much later, and someone on the street told him what was happening.

But I was home alone, with my dear sweet dogs of course, and it just seemed that our entire world was changing completely and utterly at that moment. Our previously taken-for-granted safe feeling was instantly gone, and my body would not stop shaking.

I had to get back to work. After watching the TV for a few more minutes, and realizing that the planes above in the sky may probably be OUR fighter planes protecting the coastline, I went back to work. I must have typed for another 2 hours, and I have no idea what I typed...all I could think of were those images on the TV of the Towers, the people running, the smoke and dust, and remains - all pouring down thru the air to the ground, and the Pentagon with a hole in its side...

I used to work for the Pentagon.

I didn't actually work AT the Pentagon, but I did work for the Dept. of Defense, in nearby Arlington, VA, and I spent some time at the Pentagon on various errands for work. That was many years ago, when I was just a young working girl just out of high school. I knew the Pentagon and that whole Washington D.C. area very well, having lived there for about 5 years.

My heart was beating almost out of my chest now.

I had to work. It's what I do every day, and nothing, not even an attack on our country, was going to stop me from getting it accomplished that day. Those damn enemies! They will not ruin our lives!

Well, they did ruin our lives. Some more than others. And we have not forgotten that day, and never will. We have gone thru more tribulatoins lately with the hurricane in the south, and the incredible ineptitude of those in charge of catastrophes like that. But with "Nine-Eleven", as it's come to be called, it was a direct attack on our country by our enemies - other human beings who wished us harm and death and destruction. That is so different from a category 5 hurricane coming ashore and wiping out a whole area of our country. There was no real malice in that act, just "Mother Nature" doing her thing, as she has always done whether we liked it or not.

But other human beings attacking us like this...well, it just didn't compute. Probably about as much as "Shock and Awe" didn't compute to some other innocent civilians a half a world away not long after that day. Who was the enemy then?

The enemy was us.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In remembrance of all those, here and there, around the world, who have had their lives cut short by the inhumanity of their fellow citizens of the World.

We should all look deep within ourselves for answers.

Bex

1:11 pm - 11 September 2005

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

go back ~ leave a note ~ go forward

latest entry

about me

archives

leave a note

DiaryLand

contact

random entry

other diaries:

scullerymaid
thecrankyone
author1981
chakra-nadi
ottodixless
eatmorepizza
bluejeans-uk
muffinhead
dangerspouse
wordsofmine
newschick
essaywriter
justmouse
la-the-sage
annanotbob2