My 9/11 Story

Everyone I have met, with the exception of children, remembers where they were at 9/11. On 9/11, I worked at the University of Maryland. The university is 14 miles from my home in Virginia, but I travel through the District of Columbia to get there. My home is 1/2 mile away from the Pentagon. My neighbors who were home at the time, heard the plane roaring overhead to make its crash landing. For the past 2 years I have posted my story on Facebook, and realized this year that the reason may be that I started back to work again at the University of Maryland last year. 

I haven't forgotten, but just in case, hear it is again -

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9/11 - every year on this day, when I drive to work I remember 9/11/01. The world seem peaceful except for the traffic. I had no idea that an attack on the US was taking place until I got to work. While waiting in line for coffee, the radio broadcast that a plane hit the World Trade Center. "They ought to fire that traffic controller!" we said in the coffee line. When I got to my desk, a second plane had hit and it didn't seem like an accident, but what WAS happening? Whatever it was, those poor people in New York - then the 3rd plane hit. Communication was out. I didn't know what was happening to my son. I hoped my husband was okay downtown - probably, but not positively. Natalie was with me at the Child Care Center at the University of Maryland. They wanted us to get our kids and leave but I didn't know how to get home. There was no "real time" traffic on the internet back then and not everyone had a cell phone. The bridges from DC to Virginia were closed and I was way up in Maryland. How to get home? How to get gas? How to get money to leave and go somewhere safe? I ended up communicating with Don via his mom in St. Louis. Don had walked home from work since the bridges were closed. He had picked up Garrett from school. I was able to get in touch with my neighbor, Soraya, who talked to our other neighbor, Seth, who also worked near UMD. He gave me the route he had taken. The bridge between Maryland and Virginia was open and traffic was light. I picked up my Natalie and we drove home. What a quiet night. No, planes in the air. And we always heard planes because the airport was right there. Everyone talking about the plane that shook the neighborhood as it descended into the Pentagon - "I knew that plane was going to crash" a pilot said. I went to my dad's house because he had a television and we did not since we didn't want the kids to watch too much tv. That was the last time that we did not have a tv. And then we went up on the hill to look at the Pentagon. Burning, blackness was all we could see -even with the telephoto lens of the photographer next to us. And there were our little children, looking at the chaos, high up on a hill, never to know the peace and serenity that I had taken for granted.