Today dawned a perfectly clear day, a perfect day to go flying. I had arranged with Sparky and Mark Hughes and Fred Cronenwhet to meet at Buder park for some practice and test flying. Sparky was to get the first flights on his new Juno XL. Mark is still trimming his new Stiletto 660, Fred had his fun scale Spitfire and Fox.35 speed model, and I took about 5 different models just to fly. We had a great day, lots of success with trimming and such and went home.
Today was the same kind of day I woke up to on September 11, 2001. I had set my alarm a little early ( 8AM) because I had something that I had to do, but don't remember now what that was. As the alarm went off, the radio news mentioned that a plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. I remember thinking that in this day and age, they have cameras everywhere, and that there would be something on TV about it. I thought back to seeing pictures and video of the B-25 bomber that flew into the Empire State Building right after WW-2. The aft fuselage was sticking the side of the building about 3/4 of the way to the top. I guess I was expecting to see something similar in my foggy, sleepy state of mind.
I went to the living room and turned on the TV and immediately saw images of the first tower burning and the dense smoke. I was still just in my underwear, but sat down on the edge of the coffee table to watch what was happening. As I was listening to the mindless banter of the commentators, I saw the second jet fly into the second tower and just could not believe my eyes! The commentators were obviously not watching monitors, because they kept jabbering on about something else, and I impulsively yelled at the screen,"Hey, wake up dumb asses!" I could not pull myself away from the screen for fear of missing something else, or not hear exactly what was going on.
As the morning went by, the news of Flight 93 and the Pentagon crashes came over the air and it was now clearly evident that the USA was under attack. I looked at the clock and it was well past 11AM and I had not moved a muscle. I had not even gone to the bathroom, and my bladder was about to burst, but was afraid to leave the TV. I watched as they showed the giant screen that depicted all of the commercial air traffic over the country, and was awestruck as the little airplanes started to disappear off the screen, as flights were ordered to put down ASAP where ever possible. As it started to get near time for me to leave for work, I left a bit early to drive down Lindburgh/US 67 that runs past the west end of Lambert Field. I just had to see what the scene there looked like. I pulled over to the side of the road and saw what looked like a used air liner sales lot. Air liners were parked everywhere on the field, ramps, taxi ways, anywhere there was space. I wish I had thought to take a camera. And there was nothing in the sky. The airport itself seemed deserted, nothing was moving. An unmarked car that was probably some form of law enforcement pulled up behind me and I took that as my cue to move on. It was really hard to explain what I watched that morning to people at work
I watched some programing tonight on the 15th anniversary of the attack. It still seems like yesterday to me. Watching it as it happened had a profound effect on me, I guess. I guess I feel the same way people felt on December 7, 1941. Both are a defining moment on our nations history. World War Two went on for a long, hard 4 years with much hard work and sacrifice by our people. We are 15 years past the 9/11 attacks, and we are still slogging it out in the war on terror. It makes me wonder, is it that much harder of a war to win, or do we as a country just do not have the same resolve today that we had in the 1940s?
As long as I live, I know I will never forget the events of that day, and the efforts and sacrifices made in the face of a terrible attack on our homeland.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
Topic: 9/11 (Read 1173 times)