andveryginger: (batting practice)
andveryginger ([personal profile] andveryginger) wrote2006-09-11 09:41 am

Where were you?

...I was asleep. I was working temp assignments at the time, and didn't have an assignment that day, so I was taking advantage of my day off and sleeping in. My mother called me and woke me up. She said simply, "Go turn on the television."

Furrowing my brow, I tossed back the bedcovers and headed for the living room. Switching on the cable box, it was on all the channels -- an image of the first tower, billowing with smoke, the haze black against a blue sky. I'll always remember that stark contrast; the photographs afterward only served to burn it into memory. I vaguely remember saying something else to my mother -- we might have had a short conversation, I don't remember -- and then hanging up.

I remember trying to get through to my husband, working in Crystal City at the time. The circuits were flooded; even our NexTel phones were fairly useless at that point. When the third plane hit the Pentagon, I doubled my efforts. I was finally able to get through. He said he could look out the window at one corner of the office, and see the smoke from the Pentagon.

For a few hours after that, I was glued to the television -- mainly waiting until DH got home. It took him a while. Because they had closed down the Reagan Airport Metro station, he and a friend ended up walking to King Street Metro from Crystal City. I couldn't help but think that it all sounded a bit too much like Debt of Honor to me.

***

As an afterthought, my brother linked me to this vid last night. Pretty good, even if you don't like Linkin Park. ;)

In Defense of Two Nations