All day today, September 10th 2011, I've been trying to think of something to say to commemorate the tenth anniversary of an event that would change all of our lives forever. 

September 11th and the days that followed were such a mind-numbing and visceral experience that I couldn't form a cohesive train of thought to say what I want to say.  To tell the truth, I don't know what it is that I want to say, so I'm just going to free-flow...

I was off work that day.  I slept in a bit and got up sometime shortly after nine.  I was attending to some morning rituals when my aunt telephoned and asked me if I had heard that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center.  As I hadn't turned on the radio or TV yet, I told her I hadn't.  She began describing the events to me, and I walked into the living room and turned on CNN. 

I was telling her how weird it was, but also telling her that planes have crashed into tall buildings before, but since the weather was so nice, that this was going to be an interesting accident to figure out.  At the same time, I began seeing the live footage and kept hearing the anchors saying that it was a "small plane", and even while I was talking about other things, my mind was telling me that that just wasn't right.

What I was seeing was a vertical representation of ValuJet's flight 592 crash in the Everglades, only bigger. I had seen pictures of the DC-9's impact site, and it always appeared to me like a profile view of Saturn and its rings.  That is to say, it had a large circular hole in the middle, with virtually identically sized thin extensions emanating from near centerline of what was obviously the fuselage impact site.  It was clear to me then that something big had plunged into the building in the same manner, only horizontally.

I remember pacing in my living room fueled by the adrenaline of seeing what I was seeing, and trying to talk as fast as I could to my aunt...basically thinking out loud about what could have happened and why, when the second plane hit.

I remember just stopping still...I was looking but not comprehending.  Wait a minute...was that a second plane?  Neither my aunt or myself said anything.  Really?  Was that a second plane? Uh uh...I must have missed something because that was definitely a United 767 and I don't remember hearing anything about that...

Well...we all know how it turned out.  I went into work the next day even though they told me I didn't have to and could do so with pay.  I volunteered to monitor the Continental Operations tower at the end of the C concourse while the FBI and others did a complete and thorough security sweep of the concourse.  At one point, I was the sole person on the concourse, and then the sweep began.

My job was to answer the phones and to take notes of every single call.  I fielded a multitude and wound up with twelve legal-sized pages of calls.  All in all, it was creepy.  Creepy when I got there and creepy when I left.  It was so strange to see a place so normally full of people utterly deserted.

When I left for the night, I walked the ramp outside.  The silence and emptiness of the ramp areas outside were profound.  I can't remember how many planes we had here, but the ones present were buttoned up by maintenance and appeared like they were in long term storage with engine covers and absolutely no peripherals such as air carts or running APU's. 

If I remember correctly, I did have the next couple days off like most the rest of us, and while some of the after-details seem to have entered that realm of things best left forgotten, I will never forget the day itself and the pain of seeing that second plane, and then the news of the two that followed.

As a consequence of this, I was furloughed for six months along with twelve others from my department.  I was lucky enough to be called back, but it turned out I was the last.  Eight others weren't so lucky.

No...I can't forget...how can I?  How can anyone?