I was an armed guard at the time, standing guard duty at a Bank of America banking center. My landlord caught me at the end of my driveway on my way to work, and told me that "terrorists had attacked us". How he knew that I have no idea - at that time, the radio news was leaning heavily towards an accident. I monitored it all the way to work.
At work, I stood a 10 hour shift, on my feet, outside the bank. A couple of the tellers, one gal from Venezuela and another from Columbia had taken a shine to me, and would periodically come outside and give me updates on the situation. They came and told me when the second plane hit... and then the reports from Shanksville and the Pentagon. It was starting to look like my landlord had been right - a coordinated attack rather than an accident.
The thing that stands out in my mind the most was how calm, clear, and peaceful the skies were for the next week or so, as the federal government put a stop to all flights in the aftermath of the attack, grounded all the planes. Nary a plane or contrail in the clear blue skies for about a week afterwards.
I remember the uproar when, later, they hired a Muslim to design the Shanksville Memorial, and she designed a great big Islamic Crescent and Star oriented towards Mecca as a memorial supposedly for the Americans who fought and died that day when their plane plunged into the ground at Shanksville. It was a travesty then, and it's still a travesty now - looked to most of us more like a memorial to the terrorists than to the Americans.
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At work, I stood a 10 hour shift, on my feet, outside the bank. A couple of the tellers, one gal from Venezuela and another from Columbia had taken a shine to me, and would periodically come outside and give me updates on the situation. They came and told me when the second plane hit... and then the reports from Shanksville and the Pentagon. It was starting to look like my landlord had been right - a coordinated attack rather than an accident.
The thing that stands out in my mind the most was how calm, clear, and peaceful the skies were for the next week or so, as the federal government put a stop to all flights in the aftermath of the attack, grounded all the planes. Nary a plane or contrail in the clear blue skies for about a week afterwards.
I remember the uproar when, later, they hired a Muslim to design the Shanksville Memorial, and she designed a great big Islamic Crescent and Star oriented towards Mecca as a memorial supposedly for the Americans who fought and died that day when their plane plunged into the ground at Shanksville. It was a travesty then, and it's still a travesty now - looked to most of us more like a memorial to the terrorists than to the Americans.
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