Where Were You on 9-11?

Where were you 25 years ago when the hijacked aircrafts slammed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania?

I was setting up a studio for the next day’s shoot to record TV Intros and Closes for the weekly broadcast TV shows. I had CNN on a TV monitor in the control room. I saw the first reports of the tower being hit. People on TV had no idea what happened, whether it was an accident, and how that could happen. I brought the CNN signal up to the Program monitor, which is a larger color monitor, and turned up the sound on the board. Soon, everyone I was working with was standing in front of the Grass Valley switcher, watching history unfold by the minute.

Then the second aircraft slammed into the other tower. I wrote a quick email to my Pastor, who had served in the Army in Vietnam as a Cobra pilot. All I wrote was “… do you think it was Bin Laden?” He responded within minutes, “That would be my best guess.”

We finished working in the studio when our management told us that we needed to go home; they were closing the building.

I got in my car, which was a ‘99 Chrysler 300M, my father-in-law recently left for me. It was low on gas, so I stopped at a station to fill up. As I waited in line for a pump, I heard on the radio that they were evacuating the city of Houston because it was unknown if other major cities could also be attacked. Traffic on the way home at 10:30 am was as thick as late afternoon outbound traffic, but everyone was driving a lot faster. I took the Beltway to keep my distance from downtown Houston.

I stopped at my son’s school to pick him up since the school had called. While waiting in line to pick him up at the elementary school, I stepped out of my car to lower their flag to half-staff. I knew our country was going to be different after today.

I remember telling my 10 year old son that his Uncle Mark was probably going to war after today. Be sure to pray for him and everyone else who will be going.