(i remember reading this newspaper the day after the attacks) This is more for a personal reason than to share with others what I experienced 10 years ago today, September 11, 2001 - More for a personal account where i can look on where i was the day it happened, what we were doing 10 years later, etc.
10 years ago. I was in 8th grade at Kilmer Middle School in Vienna Virginia. I was in my 3rd period Science class. My teacher announced that a plane crashed into the twin tower. I had no idea what the twin towers were, he didnt mention that we were being attacked so nobody thought anything of it.
about 20 minutes later one of my best friends in my class (who i had all 7 classes with) got called out of the class. The lady said her dad was here to pick her up. She didn't live with her dad and rarely ever saw him. She joked saying "well i hope nobody died!" -
I moved on to math class - that is when we learned that the pentagon had been hit. The pentagon in Arlington -only one small little city was between us and the pentagon. I first thought of my friend who just got pulled out of class. I knew her mom worked at the pentagon.
Suddenly there were students being pulled out of class left and right. Many of the students were saying "their parent works at the pentagon" - i still didnt realize how big it was and that it was a terrorist attack.
I remember the teachers would be sitting in the corner with the TV faced away from us. We weren't doing any lessons. we were just to sit there. Some teachers were asking what we thought and felt but idont think we knew what was really going on since we hadnt heard anything from the tv and weren't allowed to watch (i still to this day don't know why they wouldn't let us watch, maybe it was because we were so close to the pentagon and many parents of the students worked there). Going from class to class - we saw parents lined up down the long hallway. there had to been hundreds of them coming to pick up their kids.
We got home and finally watched the news with my family - my stepmom said if anything ever happened like that again that she would make sure to come get us. (a lot of people were saying we were safer in the schools than if we were to go home... thinking back to it being a mother now, i would highly disagree!) We watched re-run afer re-run of the planes hitting the twin towers. Thats when i knew how bad it was. i remember us saying "oh, september 11... 9-1-1.
we watched re-runs and re-runs of this CNN report - http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2011/09/07/natpkg-911-aircheck-timeline.cnn
we weren't allowed to go to school the next day.
now its 10 years later. We've re-witnessed the events on that day. Tom and i watched the CNN broadcast that was happening live of when everything was happening. it was heart wrenching watching the news anchor not knowing what was going to happen next, or the people on the streets not knowing the towers were about to fall or another plane was about to hit. We sat there and knew what was coming and these people didn't. we talked about what we each did that day. We talked about how the country came back together to be re-united. It's kind of funny to think that while i was sitting in class while it happened just miles away, tom was still sleeping on the other side of the country.
10 years later married and have Dulany - 2 years old, no idea whats going on. I wonder what it will be like 20 years, 30 years. on the anniversary of this day. It will be interesting to be parents and grandparents who can say they lived and witnessed this time in history to their kids and grandkids when they learn about it in school and having this tragic event in their textbooks, like us with pearl harbor. We were apart of history.
I guess all in all, the message is to remember, and never forget. I hope i can have this blog for when my kids are older, sine this is my "journal" (i know, a lame excuse for not having an actual journal) i wish as a kid i had written in my journal on that exact day so i knew my exact feelings, but i guess this will do.
