It all started a couple weeks earlier. I was reading an article in MAXIM or Popular Mechanics or something on the “new terroist threat”. Outlining ways the coming threat might happen. Then reading about the “chatter” the CIA was hearing. This info coming from a couple sources (geostrategy.com, links from Drudgereport etc…

I would kid around at work (airfreight ind.) how we should be careful cuz in a week or so my sources tell me some kind of terrorist attacks are coming.

Later on that week my roomate yelled down to me “Hey man, they just blew up a building!” I shot up because I knew what was going on. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got to the T.V. The first thing I saw was the second plane hit. Wham! how insane. How evil. What kind of people. I was sick. I remember thinking back and felt almost guilty that I sorta saw it coming. But never in my life did I think this could happen in this way. The horror was downright impossible.

After hours of watching with my jaw dropped to the floor I went to work and no one had seen any footage. I had to explane what I had seen. My voice crackled as I told them. Oh they knew because in the airfreight business, well, you know, we use planes to move stuff. We didn’t do any business for weeks.

I remeber the only thing in the sky for days were the Air Guard F-16’s flying over doing figure 8’s. In Mpls/St. Paul you rarely see any military planes. The only fighter planes in the state are in Duluth. But to only see F-16’s and live near MSP where you regularly see 747’s flying over only made it that more scary. Almost gave you the feel of the movie Red Dawn. The one where the Russians invade America. A very insecure feeling indeed.

I thought of all who died and were dying and what would I do. What could I do? What would our country do? Who, what?

I lost my job due to the huge slowdown in flights and lack of business. It seemed no one wanted to do anything, or move freight. Everything just stopped.

The people covered in ash. It seemed you could go nowhere in New York (A state I’ve never been, but feel as if it’s part of me my whole life.) without having that storm of ash chase you down and make the horror only worse. Almost as if it were covering all the thing that made it such a great place. Erasing it from us.

It didn’t though. It only made us stronger and more resolved.

I saw people stand on the edge of there driveways holding candles, flags where everywhere and still are.

I am watching the Twins play the Diamonbacks as I write this and they are singing God Bless America before the bottom of the seventh. The fans are singing to organ music. I don’t recall having seen that before 911.