We are coming up on a ten year anniversary. One I do not have an alternative opinion about. It hits way to close to home even though, technically, it never affected anyone I knew personally.
The week before I’d found out that I would indeed be getting that new job in Quality Control at a slight, ever so slight, increase in pay. I’d also learned that I’d have to go through some on the job training. I’d looked at my old clunker and decided I just could not take the chance that it would fail me as I was starting a new job. Besides my birthday would be that very Saturday! My best friend had already said she would be treating me to a movie so, just to feel special that Sept. eighth, I’d put on my nicest pair of shorts and a nicer than usual blouse. I even accessorized a little with a necklace and went to look at cars on the way back from picking which movie I wanted to see. I left the car lot, in debt but driving a truck that had not seen the light of day before 1995! I was feeling good.
Tuesday morning, September 11, I was still feeling good. The new job was ever so much more technical than just standing there shoving plastic pipe into a machine then pulling out the finished product. It at least engaged a larger portion of my brain. Besides I was driving a brand new (to me anyway) pick-um-up truck! The morning sky was a deep beautiful blue and it was not too cold or to hot. It was a perfect morning to be driving home from a third shift job that had just become a lot more interesting. The radio even worked in my new truck so I turned it to my favorite oldies station from Dallas.
They weren’t playing music at that point but I was used to that as the DJ’s during the morning rush hour were always joking and joshing about all kinds of things. This time they seemed kind of serious. I heard them discussing the breaking news about an airplane crashing into one of the World Trade Center buildings. They talked about how there were two extremely tall buildings very near the river. Some one suggested that maybe it was one of the tour planes that had somehow gone badly off course. As I turned off of highway fifty on to the north end of 513 at the Campbell exit it was solemnly announced that yet another airplane had crashed into the other building and that something had blown up in Washington, D. C.
They played music occasionally, mostly I suspected, so they could pay attention to a TV or other radio reports. I kept that radio on all the way home.
When I got there the first thing I did was turn on the TV. There the horror played out in full color. There were reruns of the planes crashing into the buildings, reports from D.C. showing, at first a column of black smoke in the distance, then from nearer to the Pentagon as time passed.
Meanwhile there were reports of people jumping from the heights of the World Trade Centers burning buildings. Long range camera’s showed the cluster of fire trucks around the base of the buildings, the ambulances, some with doors ajar waiting to whisk the injured away.
Then there was the news of that airplane crashing into some field because the passengers resisted the hijackers. Those passengers saved DC they said, as that is where that plain was apparently headed.
Unlike some, I had some idea, slight but there, of what was going on inside those two tall buildings. Inside people of all stripes who worked in those structures were trying to go down the stairs few of them ever saw.
As they sought to escape, men wearing heavy, oh, so heavy, bunker gear and carrying hoses, axes and other heavy instruments of fire fighting were going up as fast as they could. I know that to a man the fire fighters intent was to save as many lives as they could while putting out the fire before it could consume more property. After all. That is the job of any fire fighter. The EMT’s were there too, getting to the people who just couldn’t go any further and helping them. Doing what they do, everyday. Helping the ill, the injured.
Then one of the camera’s started focusing on one of the corners of one of the buildings. I felt a mild stirring of disgust. Was this fool looking for someone to film as they jumped, choosing death by falling, over burning or choking to death on acrid smoke? I looked closer at the image on the screen. No one would be jumping from that area, I realized. The fire burned there, licking through shattered windows. Then I noted how the edge, the corner of the building, seemed to be bowing outward. "Oh, that’s not good." I thought. Moments later it happened.
There on live television I watched as the first and then the second tower fell as if they were the object of a poorly planned and badly executed implosion. I found myself shivering, quivering as I sat there unable to move.
I heard a voice plaintively asking, "But what about the firefighters? What about the EMT’s?" I realized the voice was mine and that I had gone into a kind of dry eyed shock.
I managed to get up and go feed my animals. I managed to eat something myself. I even went to bed and slept. When I got up that evening I learned that all air craft were grounded and I had the odd experience of feeding my critters their evening meal with no contrails from passenger jets crossing the evening sky and glowing in the setting sun.
Of course I watched the news and saw the towers fall again and again. Learned that so many thousand civilians and hundreds of fire fighters and EMT’s had been lost. I saw the mangled remains of dust coated fire trucks. Those mangled trucks somehow brought it home harder.
When I left for work I sadly realized that I no longer had any joy in my new truck and that my fascinating new job had already become just that, a job.
And yes, the next time my pager went off, I like my fellow volunteers, jumped in our cars or trucks and headed to the fire house. What else could we do. Our Brothers in New York would have expected no less.
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