18 Years Ago Today

• Remember - Includes List of Victims of the World Trade Center and these comments:
• Sentinel
  I just wanted to share a short, personal experience related to this tragedy.

  Several months after 9/11, I concluded some business in the Washington D.C. area and was on a flight back to Atlanta. I was sitting by a window seat, with someone sitting to my right in the middle seat and a woman to the right of her in the aisle seat. During the flight I got up to use the lavatory and squeezed past them both. When I returned to my seating row, I bent down and asked them to excuse me as I returned to my seat. That's when I noticed that the woman in the aisle seat had a terribly burned section on the right side of her face.

  I sat down and quietly thought about her wound. Then the person to my right started a conversation with her. In a nutshell, through eavesdropping, I overheard the burned woman's reluctant account of 9/11. She worked at the Pentagon and was seated right where Flight 77 slammed into the building. She recalled the sudden shuddering of the building, the noise, fire and screaming. She had been knocked to the ground and mere feet from her, was the ruin of the building and all the chaos. She shared that she saw friends and coworkers in the fire and destruction and that she was fortunate to have survived. My neighbor politely stopped asking her any more questions as it was becoming more emotional.

  When we landed, I couldn't help but say something to the burned lady about her experience and started crying. That chance encounter made 9/11 far too real too me and I will always remember this survivor.
  • GGinPG Sentinel

    That was difficult to read, but thank you for posting it. We need always to remember, no matter how painful.
    I don't have a story like this to share, but I do have a relative who was very close to the Pentagon attack who walked away uninjured but forever scarred.
    On a different note, on 9/11 I was working in a small shop in a type of retail district. I don't think any business was transacted that day, but I do remember that several local restaurants sent waitresses from store to store, bearing boxes of hot food for everyone working. It was just a small slice of goodness in the middle of a nightmare, but I won't forget it.
•  Never Forget - Includes the timeline of major events that happened 18 years ago today.
•  7:59 am – Flight 11 takes off from Boston
   8:15 am – Flight 175 takes off from Boston
   8:20 am – Flight 77 takes off – Dulles to LA
   8:42 am – Flight 93 takes off from Newark
   8:46 am – Flight 11 hits the WTC North Tower
   9:03 am – Flight 175 hits the WTC South Tower
   9:37 am – Flight 77 hits the Pentagon
   9:42 am – All U.S. flights grounded 
   9:59 am – South Tower collapses
  10:03 am – Flight 93 crashes in Shanksville, PA
  10:28 am – North Tower collapses
  12:16 pm – All U.S. airspace closed
  These are the names on the 9/11 Memorial of the nearly 3,000 victims.