Nine-Eleven five years ago

Well, dear reader(s), here we are, on the fifth anniversary of one of the most horrendous events -- if not THE most horrendous -- to occur in my lifetime. To be honest, other terrible things assaulted me in A.D. 2001, that first year of the Twenty-first Century and the Third Milennium. All these traumatic events affected me deeply, and here in '06 I remember them clearly. But in the case of this one remembered today, EVERYONE remembers; it was an event which affected everyone -- most especially folks who were in the locations where it happened.

Five years ago, on Tuesday morning of the eleventh of September, I was watching "Stanley and Livingstone" on one of the classic movie reruns channels. When the movie was over, I considered getting myself ready to go out job searching (I was in the middle of a seven-month stretch of joblessness). But I decided instead to channel-surf. As the remote control sent the TV surfing over the various cable channels, there was a recurring image of one of the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City billowing out a huge cloud of black smoke. When this image had cropped up three or four times, I let up on the remote, to find out what this signified.

Shortly afterward, the second jet rammed into the second tower. That was just the beginning of a series of images on the small screen that infamous day and the following days. The Pentagon hit by a third jet. . . a fourth jet hurtling to Earth in a Pennsylvania field. . . the WTC towers imploding one after the other. . . people fleeing the destruction thru the streets of NYC, businessmen with their neckties flying over their shoulders. . . dust covering people and cars. . . . It was a much darker picture than had been that movie I'd been watching, set in the interior of "darkest" Africa!

At some point it became very clear that these United States were not being attacked by some other established nation but rather by some shadowy group of terrorists. I remember going to awaken my son (a "night owl" and late sleeper), to tell him that "we're at war!"

And so we were. Here, five years later we're still in this war against terrorists. A lot of my fellow citizens are opposed to continuing this war, or at least that part of it that has our military in Iraq. However, I remember the words our President had said a few days later, upon declaring this war against terrorism. He told us it would be a long war, and nothing like any war this nation had fought before. We need to keep up our resolve, to thwart terrorism and pass on a peaceful, terrorist-free world to our children and grandchildren.

For all the horror of those days of September of '01, a few good things came out of them. One was the strong sense of national unity in the face of this terrible new threat, another the sympathy of other nations expressed in numerous memorials overseas, some simple and spontaneous, such as growing collections of lit candles outside USA embassies. And for me, a growing gratitude that the previous November (after much thought and weighing the plusses & minuses of the candidates) I had cast my vote for the man who was to be President when the 9-11 attacks occurred. Yes, I thank God that George W. Bush was our President when the atack came!

So: where were YOU that Tuesday morning five years ago? What were YOU engaged in?