As someone else already mentioned, I remember how eerily quiet the skies were. It was my first fall since graduating college and I was taking a year off from responsibility by working a landscaping job. On the morning of 9/11 I was enjoying a cup of coffee outside on a beautiful morning, waiting for a co-worker to pick me up.
I had no idea that this day was any different than any other until my co-worker showed up to pick me up for work. We spent the day barely working and listening to the truck radio for news.
I worried about my mom and brother in Boston, and friends in New York, and wondered if or when I'd see them next. I remember worrying that more attacks were surely coming...germ warfare or a nuke or something.
It sounds ridiculous now, but after work I went to the grocery store and stocked up on canned soup, bottled water, and a bottle of whiskey. The whiskey didn't last long.
It was difficult making phone calls to the east coast because so many people were trying to make calls. This went on for days, and the whole time the t.v. was on with the endless loop of the towers collapsing...it was surreal.
Perhaps the greatest memory that stands out in my mind as an American though, is the outpouring of support and sympathy from other countries. So often, it seems that the rest of the world takes such great joy at any failures or short-comings of the United States...but not that day.
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