The night before the attack, I couldn’t sleep. Usually when something on a grand scale is about the happen, I just know. It’s the knowing something is coming, not knowing what and not knowing what to do. I was posting on a board that I frequent when one of my friends posted something about an airplane hitting the WTC. At first, I thought, a freak accident. But I was compelled to turn on the news. As I watch, the news stations were trying to sort out what could have happened. That’s when I saw the second plane hit. Holy hell. I do not shock often or easily. I called my parents and tried to tell my father what had happened, the words weren’t coming out right, that has never happened to me before. My reply was “Plane…WTC, two planes, crashed.”

My father understood and would look for it on the news right away. I set the phone down and could not take my eyes off the tv for the next several hours. I am a passionate woman, and I feel the greatest joy, but now the most heartbreaking sorrow. In any given event, one of my family members could have been in those buildings, I have family in New York, it hurt, it hurt my heart. And next was anger, and a vow that I would do all I could, if I have to join the service I will to fight and to die, for my son’s future and for America’s freedom.

Be well.