Where Were You September 11?.....Where Are You Now?

I was in a a very large warehouse complex about 10 miles north of the small town of Sidney, NE. I was working, supervising a Receiving Department crew. We had no access to television, just radio. News came over the radio that a bomb had went off at the World Trade Center. Then very quickly after that news came that it was a plane and everybody was going to be OK. I could feel the relief...until the next news came.... a plane had hit both Twin Tower buildings. Then the Pentagon...

Fifty people in the area where I worked fell silent. Not a noise. It was an eerie silence. Like we all knew this was bad, very bad. The trucks in the lot fell silent. Motorized equipment stopped. Not a word was said. No work was being done. Then the fear set in...

Even though we were in a place that was remote in location, employees were genuinely afraid of being attacked. I don't know if it was the shock of event or the just memory of passing three nuclear missile silos on the the way to work just a couple of hours before. Whatever the reason fear gripped everybody. By the time we had heard of the Pennsylvania crash, are work near completion for the day and our Manager and I decided that it was best to let everyone go home. That was what I remember of 9-11-2001. The silence and the fear.

I lost no loved ones on that day, or even knew anybody who did, but it changed me. It changed how I thought... how I lived. I held no interest in news or world events before that day. For that matter I didn't even care about anybody else in general. Life was all about me. I was busy trying to make my career my life. Chasing the almighty buck. On that day I realized that no matter what you earn at a job or what title you have, it all means nothing when they place a rock with your name on it 6 feet above your head, on the ground.

Now, nine years later what we have learned as individuals and as a nation? I have heard of many different events and stories that occurred, because of 9/11, in peoples lives. Marriages, changes in occupation, lost relatives found, reaffirmation with God. Americans made decisions that made their lives better.

As a nation we started taking more security precautions, commenced two wars against terrorism and became more vigilant about locating possible "bad guys" that want to cause us harm.

Today we remember those 3,000 people lost. We ponder what could have been their possibilities in life. We think of how they were robbed of those possibilities. We weep of their loss. I believe that these heroes gave everything they could give, to help the rest of us to wake up to our own possibilities. Have you woke up to your possibilities? Do your actions tarnish or epitomize the memory of 9/11 heroes?

This year the memory of that September day is affecting me harder than most years in the past. I do not know why. What I do know is I will never forget the silence and fear I felt on that terrible day. I pray today that I can use the silence and fear I felt on September 11 to reconnect with God.