Remembering 911

After a few days in Las Vegas, we’d been resting from traveling the night prior when my new wife and I were awaken in a Denver, Colorado hotel room by the sound of WGN’s news broadcast. Blurry eyes focused in to the television we fell asleep watching the night before. The sight of smoke pouring out of the one of the World Trade Center towers and the reporter’s vocals relaying the account prompted me to question my mental and physical presence. Was I dreaming? Where am I? Who’s bombing Chicago? I immediately assumed the WGN television station was reporting on a local high-rise building catastrophe. As I became wide awake, the reality set in that what I was watching was the World Trade Center in New York. Within less than a minute, the second plane struck the adjacent tower right before my eyes! What we are watching is live! Get up! I yelled. I immediately called to arrange an early flight out of Denver with no luck. The airports were ordered closed. The rental car we purchased was from a local company and all of the national chains were booked solid. The thought of driving back to Chicago was squashed. The sight of F-14 fighter jets roaring overhead from a nearby air force base was the only activity that countered the situation locally. The day was quiet with very little movement and somber expressions from all. We were stuck in Denver for days until a rental car became available.  But more important , the virgin of terrorism had been taken away from America and with it hundreds of lives consumed and millions impacted by the insecurity inherited.