12 Days later.
It's funny. On 9/11/11, I refused to watch tv, read the newspaper, or really even be online. I didn't want to think about it or hear any thoughts on it. And here I am watching CrackSI:NY season premiere and it's 9/11 tribute with scenes from the 10th anniversary.
It's weird.
people always ask me where I was... new coworkers or others. I was in class - Hazardous Waste with Professor Miller. I remember knowing the 1st tower was hit before class started. We learned about the 2nd tower being hit around 930 when Prof went down stairs for the text he forgot. I found out about the towers falling, the Pentagon being hit, and the plane going down in Penn after 11 am, when Prof. let us out of class at it's normal ending time. Yes. I had the entire 2 hour class. I learned we were the only class that actually met that day the following day. Pace has a Manhattan campus- the main one and they had an entire floor in one of the 2 towers. They lost no one because their floor was in the twenties... but it was days later when I learned that. I know 4-5 people on my floor had family who worked down there but none of them went to work that day. It was late afternoon when we cleared the last family member with that. Phone service was spotty -- cells were down obviously - overloaded and gone. We were in White Plains at law school and we lost phones and internet that Tuesday night... as Tower 7 came down. Once class ended, I never left the 4th floor TV lounge until late Tuesday night. we were all glued there.
I remember turning numb when I found out about the Pentagon. It was the US Army wing that was hit and I had turned in my Department of Defense ID for my ARMY JAG internship on August 11, 2001. Weeks later I learned people I had worked with where I was stationed outside of DC had known people who had been killed.
Wednesday we didn't have class again. I don't remember if we had class Thursday. I know it was some time before we got communications back.
In the days after, the law school set up a clinic to help people with claims and talking and anything. There were blood drives and such. I never did anything. I couldn't give blood since it was less than a month after I had ACL surgery on August 17th and I was in a full leg brace until Thanksgiving. It wasn't easy to move around, it hurt because I stopped pain killers 4 days after surgery.
The rest fades from memory. Except for the lessons we've never learned and I don't hold a hope of the country learning... tolerance, acceptance, the rule of law. But that is all irrelevant here.
So that's what I remember. Sometimes there are still burned images of that day. I can't remember faces of the people I spent 2.5 years there living in the dorm with. but I have vivid memories of groups of us staring at a tv.
In January 2002, I went down to the WTC area. I've been there numerous times since then. Since 2001, I've known friends who are soldiers over there... August 2011 was the first time I haven't know someone in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001 and don't expect to for a long while.
It's weird.
people always ask me where I was... new coworkers or others. I was in class - Hazardous Waste with Professor Miller. I remember knowing the 1st tower was hit before class started. We learned about the 2nd tower being hit around 930 when Prof went down stairs for the text he forgot. I found out about the towers falling, the Pentagon being hit, and the plane going down in Penn after 11 am, when Prof. let us out of class at it's normal ending time. Yes. I had the entire 2 hour class. I learned we were the only class that actually met that day the following day. Pace has a Manhattan campus- the main one and they had an entire floor in one of the 2 towers. They lost no one because their floor was in the twenties... but it was days later when I learned that. I know 4-5 people on my floor had family who worked down there but none of them went to work that day. It was late afternoon when we cleared the last family member with that. Phone service was spotty -- cells were down obviously - overloaded and gone. We were in White Plains at law school and we lost phones and internet that Tuesday night... as Tower 7 came down. Once class ended, I never left the 4th floor TV lounge until late Tuesday night. we were all glued there.
I remember turning numb when I found out about the Pentagon. It was the US Army wing that was hit and I had turned in my Department of Defense ID for my ARMY JAG internship on August 11, 2001. Weeks later I learned people I had worked with where I was stationed outside of DC had known people who had been killed.
Wednesday we didn't have class again. I don't remember if we had class Thursday. I know it was some time before we got communications back.
In the days after, the law school set up a clinic to help people with claims and talking and anything. There were blood drives and such. I never did anything. I couldn't give blood since it was less than a month after I had ACL surgery on August 17th and I was in a full leg brace until Thanksgiving. It wasn't easy to move around, it hurt because I stopped pain killers 4 days after surgery.
The rest fades from memory. Except for the lessons we've never learned and I don't hold a hope of the country learning... tolerance, acceptance, the rule of law. But that is all irrelevant here.
So that's what I remember. Sometimes there are still burned images of that day. I can't remember faces of the people I spent 2.5 years there living in the dorm with. but I have vivid memories of groups of us staring at a tv.
In January 2002, I went down to the WTC area. I've been there numerous times since then. Since 2001, I've known friends who are soldiers over there... August 2011 was the first time I haven't know someone in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001 and don't expect to for a long while.