September 11th 2001- Memories

September 11th, 2001

September 11th is my brother’s birthday. It’s also Hubby’s friend Greg’s. Greg’s wife Lily introduced Hubby and I. I feel bad for them that their day was overshadowed by such horrific events.

At the time I was a Contractor with the Air Force. I worked on Base. I was coming from the Cafeteria and walked by a co-worker who said “Do you know anybody who is visiting New York City? A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.” So I get back to my desk an try to pull up CNN on the Internet. It’s slow. People in the office are milling about talking. I turn on my desk radio. We hear the second tower has been hit. Another Co-worker is getting very nervous. He thinks they are going to lockdown the base and he wants to leave now! I think maybe he is overreacting. Well, they did up the security on the base to Delta. That usually means nobody in on or off. Then Our Contracting PM comes around telling all of the contractors to go home, that he would be in touch about tomorrow via the recall roster. Since I am the lead for my small contracting company, He will call me with news and I will call all of the people that work for my company.

So I get in my car and join the line of people driving off base. I am listening to the radio. I remember a lot of talk and hearing a lot of the song “In the arms of an angel”. I went to my corporate office. There are too many of us there. We are given instructions that if we have work we can do from home and bill the Government, that’s what we are to do. Those who did not have work to do were to be in the office.

I went home but was unable to keep my eyes off of the TV. I worried aobut my boys at school and daycare, but I was supposed to be working from home. I figured they were safe enough and I did not want to disrupt their routine.

We were kept off base for 4 or 5 days. Several of those days, I was at the corporate office. I remember I represented the company at a meeting to go over a contract proposal.

Once we were allowed back on base, the entire security posture of the place was changed. We had to wait in long lines to get to on base. IDs were checked and double checked. Doors were locked, traffic flow was changed. The entire world changed.

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