Have you forgotten how it felt that day?

I remember very clearly.  I remember where I was, what I was doing, how it was a clear blue day  . . . 

It was a day like any other day.  I was at work . . . less than 30 miles from New York City . . .  and someone came up to me and told me a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.  My first reaction was that someone piloting a private aircraft had had a heart attack or something and that it was just a horrible accident.  

Then came the reports of a second plane approaching and I knew it was no accident but the actual horror of the situation was still incomprehensible.     

A group of us crowded into a conference room that had a big screen television and watched in shock as the second plane deliberately banked and crashed into the second tower.

Still the reality of what had happened was still unimaginable.  But it was there right in front of us all . . .  laid bare . . .  and it did what it was intended to do . . . it was terrifying.

Somehow I made it through that awful day.  That evening, I got together with a group of my closest friends.  Thankfully, no one I knew had been in the Towers when they fell.  But, a girlfriend of mine was an EMT who's unit had responded to the disaster.  She made it home safe and sound . . . but her ambulance didn't.

Of course, I knew people who lost family members or friends as a direct result of the attack and I can't imagine their grief.

Ten years later, the memories are still painful.  I am emotional as I write this.  I'm glad that Americans are resilient and strong.  

I pray that we never again reach that level of complacency or achieve that misguided notion of invincibility that led to the possibility of those acts of terrorism against us.

And to all of you fucktard 9/11 truthers and conspiracy theorists . . . get a grip or go back to burying your head in the sand.  It's that kind of bullshit mentality that give power to those who would attack us  . . . from outside and within.