Mav, Thanks that's the best one ever in my opinion.
I posted this on another board in a discussion about where you were that day and how it's changed you since.
"Apologies if this post is very long.
At that time I had a job I called 'my high paying hobby' I absolutely loved it and was always at work by 7:00 am. I didn't, at that time, listen to the radio at work so, when the rest of the office workers started showing up one of them said that a plane had crashed into the WTC. 'Stupid small plane pilot' I thought. A few minutes later somebody else said that another plane had hit the other tower.
My heart stopped and my blood ran cold. I knew right then and there that it was a terrorist attack. We spent the rest of the morning huddled around the radios listening to the reports.
I lived 5 miles from my office so, at 11:00 pm I went to the grocery store, bought about $200 worth of water, canned goods, etc., thinking that the next logical step could be a chemical or biological attack and Dallas / Fort Worth is a pretty decent target as well. Went home and watched about an hour and a half of the coverage and went back to work honestly angry, sad, and frustrated, that our employers demanded we stay for the whole day. My opinion of them changed dramatically that day.
I'll be honest that I was amazed at the number of calls that I had that afternoon from people who were completely unaware of what was going on and were shocked when I told them to turn on their radios. By 2:00 CST our phones had stopped ringing. I left early, picked up the squid from school, and went home to watch the coverage.
I'll never forget how surreal it was for the next week or so not seeing a plane in the air other than military and the sick sadness I felt in my heart for the families and children of the victims whose daddies and mommys went to work like any normal day and never came home.
9/11 changed me a lot. Prior to that day I was a recluse. My life consisted of working and rasing my kid. I never went out, never pursued dating, wasn't a part of any internet 'community'.
I started reaching out to people to get to know them and made a lot of friends. I also make it a point to tell everybody I love them as I leave for the day because you never really know what can happen.
Thankfully through the changes that I made after that day I've got a wife, four wonderful kids, and good friends, that fulfill me and make me happy. I can almost guarantee that wouldn't have happened for me prior to."
I don't have the answer to our problems. It's very convienant to say 'let's just kill them all' but genocide isn't the answer in my opinion.
I'm proud of our servicemen and wish I could turn the clock back 10 years and join them. I'd happily put my life on the line to meet an enemy on the field of battle and stop them from ever harming another innocent person in this country or any other.
The enemy we face chooses tactics of cowardice and terror as opposed to meeting our forces strength on strength. Let's face it they know they'd lose.
Until the world as a whole decides that this type of political expression is unacceptable in civilized society I fear we will forever be to deeply involved in this quagmire losing people needlessly and having innocent people die to collateral damage.
Conspiracy theorists I'm sorry but I just don't see how the current administration that is portrayed as full of bumblers and fools is smart enough to orchestrate something like this. They're either incredibly bright and have you all fooled by the dumb act or they're incredibly stupid and just let it happen by happenstance. I choose to think that there's a lot we don't know because, at this time, we don't need to know.
We are at war in case people have forgotten and, while I rarely use Wikipedia as a reference the following link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_home_front_during_World_War_II is a good point of reference. We civilians do not have the daily inconvienances that the average citizen had during those awful years.
Today I woke up, took a long shower, put gas in my car, had a good sandwich for lunch, and I'm working a decent job that has nothing to do with winning this war.
Maybe we, as a citizenry, need a little bit stronger day to day reminder of what's really going on and why.
I have noticed that there haven't been any more attacks on our soil since all of this began and it is my belief that it's due to the efforts of some good men and women who really care and do try to make a difference.
