Mayhem & Chaos: The Blog

Six years ago today, America changed, we changed, I changed. As I was driving to work today I listened to the usual mix of morning FM radio. Most of the morning shows did their routine shows with just enough mention of September 11th for me to remember where I was six years ago.

Tuesday: September 11, 2001

I got up that morning just like any regular day. I had a morning shift at Papadeaux that day, so I was up around 7am. Normally I wouldn’t have been up so early but that day my aunt was picking me up to get my car out of the shop.

I took my shower and turned on the T.V. I saw a building with smoke coming out of it. I thought it was a local fire here in Houston at our then Transco Tower. Not a few seconds later I realized which building was on fire. And then the second plane hit.

Even thinking about it as I write this gives me bad feelings. From the walk to my apartment to my aunts car, the Pentagon was attacked. She asked me if I could believe what was happening, all this was crazy! I got my car out of the shop and headed to work. All over the radio was audio of what was happening, live updates via CNN - it was chaos and confusion.

As I pulled into the parking lot they were talking about evacuating downtown Houston and major buildings that could potentially be attacked. I walked in to work to see all my co-workers around the two T.V.s at the bar. It didn’t really hit me until someone walked up to me and asked, “Are you okay?”

See, up until then I was in the Army Reserve for only two years. No, I wasn’t alright. I feared the worst. I broke down in terror playing scenarios in my head about being deployed. My manager asked if I wanted to go home, but I stayed at work.

The next few weeks were filled with sleepless nights watching all the people at Ground Zero hopelessly looking for their lost loved ones. The uncertainty of my deployment drove me crazy, adding to my stress.

Six years later, I was never deployed, my life went on and my doubts about this government grew. But that’s another blog entry.

Everyone says they remember where they were ~ but most people now don’t even remember what year 9/11 happened. I guess “We’ll Never Forget” really means, “We’ll Remember As Long As We Can”.