We will Never Forget

I worked in sales for a cabling contractor and we were in our weekly Tuesday sales meeting. Someone wheeled the only TV we had out of the conference room to set it up in the main office area. About 30 of us were huddled around it for hours. We watched it all unfold. They sent us home about mid day. My brother also was sent home. He and I decided to go to the gun range that afternoon at Elm Fork. We talked to another guy there shooting, and he was shooting a full size Bin Laden target with his AR. He said this M F'er was behind it and knew it would start a war. How correct he was. What's strange, is most 9/11 dates I have been on the gun range shooting and working. I'm not today, but I feel strange not shooting on today's date.

Working. I had met crew in Arlington. Some guy hollered the towers are being attacked. He was one those guys, so we all assumed he was call wolf. We all went to tv and saw smoke starting to escape. I remember thinking, I hoped the fire suppression system works.

I left that location. I heard on 1080 AM, it was an attack. I was headed north on Walton Walker when the first tower collasped.

I was sick, mad,numb and on high alert.

I was driving to work when I got a call about it from my best friend. We talked until I got to work and I got in the building intime to join a mass of people around the only TV in the office to watch the second plane hit the second tower.

Needless to say uch work got done. I was working in a 16 floor building in Richardson and there were some freeking out when a Emergency helicopter came by about 1/4 mile away thinking they were going to fly into that building.

Still pray for the kids that were left parent less or lost family members that day and all those that have lost parents in the fight against our enemies that want to destory u, and for those that serve to protect us.

I don’t as driving down Forest Ln in Garland to work when I heard about the first plane hitting the building. At that time they didn’t know what was going on if it was as an accident or not. Once I got to my office I went down to the cafe and they had a TV on and I saw the second plane hit. At that time I knew we were under attack. I went back to my office and little was done and they let us go about mid day. One of my bosses was out of state giving a seminar he had to drive back from where he was and it took a couple days.

At the bank trying to get funding for a house I sold to a guy. Monday was a holiday so the banks were closed. Fading heat from my customer who wanted the keys to his new home. We were in the lobby watching the TV when the second plane hit the tower. There was an older gentleman in there who started screaming and crying, "we're under, we're under attack". He was mumbling about Pearl harbor. We were all visibly upset and in shock. Bank funding went through. My customer and I walked out of the bank stunned. I'm sure he'll never forget. I know I won't.

Bidding a job in the hospital district Fort Worth with my Protégé..

I was sitting at work, working away, when a friend of mine instant messaged me on AOL IM who's husband was an air traffic controller. she said go find a TV, one of the WTC towers was hit by an aircraft (ATC initially thought it was a smaller private plane) ... so I went to a conference room with a TV and turned it on to see the smoke coming from 1 tower. I left the TV on and went back to my office to find another message from her that another plane had hit the other tower, both commercial. I went back to the CR and was pretty much glued to the TV for a while as others had gathered in there by that time. I was pretty much in disbelief and stunned ... a little later reports of another hitting the Pentagon and another in PA ... my friend said her husband had called her to tell her he wasn't sure when he would be home and he had already pulled a 12+ hour shift. A bit later she told me that all ATC across the USA had put out word for all planes to get grounded as soon as possible, to closest airport immediately. the ATC were in contact with all aircraft within their pattern and putting planes on the ground much faster than was really safe. AF jets were immediately scrambled and were guiding/escorting commercial aircraft into closest patterns. It was surreal and very somber that day and the next few days that followed. Our company lost 3 employees that were traveling, 2 on the plane that hit the Pentagon and 1 on the one in PA.

we had a bunch of people on business travel all across the country that finally found rental cars and drove back home since there were several days where no airlines were allowed to fly.

by noon I had called my wife and parents to check on them and let them know I was safe ... although I wasn't traveling, everyone was concerned about their loved ones.

we had a Patriot's day ceremony out front of the main building this morning, lowering the flag to half staff ... I know I will never forget that day or the group of people behind it ...

New guy on the FD, 21 years old. Woke up at home planning to study for Paramedic school all day. Couldn't do anything but watch the news.

I was working a project at IBM in Fishkill, NY.

Sunday 9/9/01 - Took a NYC tour with a group from work. Empire State Bldg, Chelsea Pier, WTC Bldgs, etc...
Monday 9/10/01 - Dropped my wife off at JFK so she could head back to DFW
Tuesday 9/11/01 - The buildings that I was just in on 9/9/01 were gone.

I heard it on the radio as I was on Hiway 70 heading south out of Sweetwater to Ft. Chadbourne. It sits on the ranch a friend of mine owns and grew up on. He had been restoring the original buildings and I had been helping out. The commander's quarters and the main barracks buildings were the first ones completed. When I got there, Garland, the others working there and I talked about how the world had just changed forever. We lowered the flag to half staff. Here we were lowering the Stars and Stripes right in the middle of the parade grounds of a U.S. military installation dating back to the late 1850's. It struck me as very profound, I will never forget it.

I was working in OKC. Watched the second plane hit on a TV in a machine shop break room.