Where Was I?

Where was I when the towers fell? I was at work. It was a day not unlike any other day. Johnny was running Line 3 at the time, and Michael Shade was our production superintendent. I worked in tubing under the late Virgil Mann. I would like to say that everybody loved Virgil, but that simply wouldn't be true. Virgil was fair. He treated everyone who worked under him the same. Those who had been receiving special treatment under our previous supervisor accused Virgil of playing favorites. He wasn't. He was simply making sure that everyone in the department got to enjoy the privileges that heretofore had been reserved for a special few. Those special few hated him for it.

That year, 2001, Virgil decided that instead of moving one or two people out of the department for the slow season, everyone would do a two week long rotation of being moved around. September 11th just happened to fall into my two week rotation, which is why I was working on Line 3 that morning.

I was at the end of the line, combing out fins on a coil when my buddy Duane came running up to me all excited and exclaimed, "We're under attack!"

"By who?" I asked, but he said that nobody knew yet. Duane told me that they had bombed Washington D.C, but it was pretty early, and nobody really knew what was going on yet. Soon, he came back and said that the Capitol and possibly the White House had been bombed, which we now know wasn't true. It wasn't even lunchtime yet but the Bush blaming had already begun.

"He's letting them all into the country," one person said. Even Johnny got blamed. "You voted for him," another person accused.

In our fast paced, instant gratification society, people don't seem to grasp the fact that results today have their origins in actions that could have taken place months and even years ago. The wheels of 9/11 began turning long before Bush took office. An attack of this scale is hardly a spur of the moment decision.

Around 10-ish, our Director of Operations Scott Reid came out and read a press release. It said that the Capitol may have been hit, and all air traffic had been grounded, but there were aircraft that were still unaccounted for. "As far as I know," Scott told us, "none of the schools are closing. If I find out anything more, I will make an announcement." Then it was back to work as usual. It was kind of hard to go back to work as usual. I don't think a lot got done that day.

After work, I went to pick Cody up from school. He was in second grade at the private school then, and they don't have bus service. Once we got home, I turned on the TV and parked myself in front of it. That was around 4:00 PM, and I got my first images of the planes hitting and the towers falling. Of the people hanging out of the windows pleading for a miracle. Of others who decided the miracle wasn't coming and jumped. I was watching a live broadcast when tower 7 fell. There was no bomb. There was no explosion. It just fell.

But then came a dilemma. I knew the President was due to speak, but it was Cub Scout registration night. I wanted to hear the speech, but we would need to go to scout night, too. So I put in a tape and hit record, and just let the entire tape fill up with news. Later, I fast forwarded to the President's speech and watched it. Then I put the tape on the shelf, and haven't looked at it since.

The next few days were filled with news, sadness, cheering when another person was pulled alive from the rubble of the towers, and mourning when another body was found. The dam out at the lake was closed off to prevent terrorists from blowing it. People were really worried about that, too. "If they blow that dam, this whole town will be wiped out."

"Don't worry about it," I tried to reassure them. "Terrorists want attention. They aren't going to hit a town nobody's ever heard of." The dam remained closed for several weeks, and though they are open now, the gates have never been taken down.

I was concerned about how all this was affecting Cody, who was only 7 at the time. He didn't seem outwardly affected, so I asked him one day if he ever worried about something like that happening to us. "No," he said. "I know that if someone tries to fly a plane into our house, you'll go out there and make him stop." But he put a sign on his bedroom door that said, "No bin laden allowed!", and his play was filled with airplanes crashing into buildings. He did come up with a creative, and rather unique solution to the problem. His idea? Put up fake buildings and let the terrorists kill themselves off. Works for me.

Now some six years later, people are back to life as usual. Most of America is going about their business as if it had never happened. Even worse are the ones who want to give up on freedom. They want to quit, give up, surrender and pretend it won't happen again. They want to pretend it didn't happen in the first place. They want to forget.

Me? I will never forget.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go knit some more soldier socks...