September 11, 2001 will be a date that is forever seared into the minds of all who were alive that day. The day America lost her innocence. It was so hard to believe that someone would be so evil to hijack a jet plane and deliberately fly it into a building let alone several planes on the same day. As we watched the news stories unfold, I had an empty pit in my stomach knowing even my world would never be the same. I looked at overhead planes differently, lost my enthusiasm for traveling by air and in general became more of a homebody.
Like many others, after that initial newscast, I was glued to the television trying to make sense of what was happening. A jet had flown into the World Trade Center tower, followed by a second jet moments later. The building came tumbling down with thousands of people with it. Many lives were lost, you could see people jumping to their deaths. The cloud of concrete dust and debris making it difficult for survivors to breathe. Emergency personnel scrambled to the scene without hesitation for their own safety. Many did not go home that night and gave their lives to try to save others.
While this was the scene in New York, another jet flew into the Pentagon, one of our nation's government icons in Washington and a building I had been in during a class trip so many years ago. I can only imagine the horror these people went through knowing they would not survive.
A fourth plane was taken over but passengers fought back against the hijackers. Unfortunately not successfully and the plane went down in a Pennsylvania field taking all the passengers with it. Still, it's intended target would have resulted in many more deaths.
So little regard for life, even their own. Misguided evil had reared its ugly head. Our world changed forever on September 11, 2001.
