We loaded the necessary software on computers in a training room off site, away from office distractions. It was important that students, our coworkers, focus on the lectures and exercises we had prepared. Three days of training per student was allocated. Coverage for their duties was taken care of and lunch provided. Everyone arrived early for the first day of class. It was September 11th, 2001.
I left for work early to meet our consultant, heading up the Tristate Tollway and onto a long exit ramp. It was a sunny day, one of the last of summer in the post-Labor Day period that serves as a transition to cooler autumn temperatures and shorter days. I listened to the news as always. In that short stretch of highway, two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center.
As shocking as that was, it soon got worse. I parked my car, walked toward our waiting consultant and asked him if he’d heard the news. Chris Kubica and I became bonded for life in that moment. He looked at me as if I was joking. He hadn’t heard. I am the person who told him about 911.
Students arrived and took their seats, some just becoming aware of the tragedy, others unaware. All of our students brought up their web browsers, pretending to be paying attention, but searching for news as Chris nervously attempted to conduct the class. The internet bogged down, barely able to assemble on-screen pages. Twenty years ago, bandwidth at our company was far less robust.
Planes had hit tall buildings before, but not commercial jets. Still, the double strike might be a bizarre coincidence. During the first hour of class another plane hit the Pentagon. And then another crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. When would it stop? Was the White House next? When the Pentagon was hit, the story changed. Our mood darkened and the day intensified. The country was under attack. We took a break earlier than had been scheduled. At this point we should have sent everyone home. It was clear that nothing would be learned that day.
We all refreshed our screens, made phone calls to loved ones, hoping not to hear reports of other attacks, perhaps nuclear strikes - more horrific main events following the sinister and distracting first wave. Families were separated at jobs and in schools. What chaos might erupt on city streets as everyone suddenly scrambled to get home?
We didn’t realize that we were in the middle of “911.” It hadn’t been named yet, or compared with Pearl Harbor. A ground stop emptied the skies of planes, an eerie silence we’d never seen before. Our traveling coworkers were stranded in other countries or locations within the U.S. We had never heard of TSA and couldn’t imagine the protocols that would become a normal part of travel going forward. We all watched in horror for many days as video was displayed on the evening news in a seemingly endless loop. We began the process of “never forgetting” that some of us recalled from November 22, 1963. On that day, our President died. On September 11th, our national innocence perished and we entered a new era, every one of us.
On every September 11th for the past twenty-one years, my good friend Chris and I exchange notes in recognition of the link that was forged that morning. Our children have grown, our careers changed, but we commemorate who we were at 7:45am, Central Time on that morning, and who we became one minute later.
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