September 11.  Isn't it hard to believe that ten years have passed?  Our generation's Pearl Harbor.  Our parents and grandparents felt the horror in 1941.  In 2001, it was our turn.

In 2005 I was at Ground Zero.  Along with many others, I hooked my fingers into the surrounding chain link fence and looked down into that God-awful hole in the ground.  It was not as bad as the Vietnam Memorial (truly the saddest place I have ever visited), but it was not happy land.  In my mind, I pictured a memorial of steps and fountains, something tranquil and quiet.

Where were you when you got the news?  I was in my elementary school.  We were not allowed to crawl into a corner and recover from the shock.  Had to keep that stiff upper lip for the kids.  Had to make sure that the teachers were carrying on and still covering those TEKs.  But the kids were not fooled.  The older ones understood.  The little ones just knew something was really wrong.  All of their teachers looked blank.  In the afternoon, my daughter managed to call out from her school.  Their teachers were allowing them the comfort of hearing their parents' voices even though it was strictly against the rules to call during school hours.

On the radio the other day, I heard that a novel about 9-11 might be coming out.  My first reaction was No!  Not yet, the wounds are still too fresh.  Sure, they make lots of movies and write lots of books about Pearl Harbor, but I am just not ready for the same about 9-11.

In many ways, ours was a sheltered generation.  Our borders had remained untouched all during our childhood and adulthood.  Yes, we had the Korean War, the Berlin wall, and the Cuban missile crisis.  We carried the weight of Vietnam way too long.  Then came the Tehran hostage crisis and Desert Storm.  But these were far away.  We were still inviolate.  No one had touched our country.  We felt in our hearts that the USA was safe.  No one could get us

But they could and they did.

On the coming anniversary, I will again dig out my NYPD T-shirt as I always do and wear it in their honor.  I plan to do this the rest of my life.

I was on my regular day off from work, & at home and in bed when the 1st plane flew into the WTC.  When I woke up I turned on the TV, and saw one tower with smoke coming out of it.  I rubbed my eyes, and honestly thought I was watching some "comedy channel"  but I soon realized it was real and watched the 2nd Plane come in.  Shocked was an understatement.  Watching the towers come down was just beyond description.  How sad, and shocked I felt, I just can't describe.  Then were hear about the Pentagon, and the other flight in PA. Thinking "WTH is going on"?

I heard about the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) telling all planes to land, and I called into work to see if they needed anything or any extra help.  They didn't so I spent the rest of the day just watching the tv coverage. 

From my point of view what the FAA required of the air traffic controllers was amazing, and they accomplished an absolute miracle.  Forcing all planes to land has "never ever been done before", and within I think 90 minutes to 2 hours after the order went out almost 98% of all planes in the US were on the ground. 

It was very weird to go into work the next day, up in the control tower looking out over the airport, & we had about 18 strange airliners parked all over the place waiting to get some direction from the government as to when they could leave again.  You might not remember but it took about 3 days before the FAA started letting airlines resume a semi regular schedule.  They first would only let Emergency aircraft fly like "Life-Flights", and then they started letting some Air Taxi aircraft FedEx, or UPS fly but they had to be on a flight plan. The commercial airliners were the last that the FAA let go. I will never forget that day.  I remember the tension that my folks were showing during the Cuban missile Crisis, but I was still pretty you to understand all that was going on.  But this was truly a memorable event for us all.