The morning of September 11, 2001 was a beautiful sunny, warm day here in Midlothian, VA. I placed my son in his car seat in the minivan and drove around the block to a neighbors house to pick up their son as well. I was the carpool driver this week and had one more stop to make before getting to the school. I watched as the lad was walked out to my van by his grandmother. "Miss Loretta" was living with her son's family in the house directly behind my own and she was a straight-shooting, heavy smoking Long Island native, who was always a joy to talk to.

I rolled my window down to say my good mornings when she asked, in her gravely, cigarette damaged voice, "Did you hear some nut flew a plane into the Trade Center?" I was naturally taken aback, but did not yet know what had occurred. I responded, "Well, hell, you'd have to want to do that wouldn't you? I mean it's not like you can't see that thing." We said our goodbyes and I drove off for school. I turned on my radio and tuned to the local news station. That is when I heard the breathless news reporter recounting the scene before him in New York. The chills ran up and down my back and the anger began to set in.

After dropping the kids off at school I went on to work at the Sears store I was then employed at. By now the word had spread and everyone knew what was happening. The silence was deafening in that store and throughout the mall that day. People just walked around as if in a daze. When someone did speak it was to ask, "Any more news? Who do they think did it? Why?" Much speculation was offered, but no hard answers. All the guys, myself included, were ready to pound someone, if we could only get our hands on the bastards who did this. I know, I know, it's a guy thing. I don't remember ever feeling so angry and frustrated in all of my life.

As news filtered out over the coming days, and more was known about who, why, and how, I was even more determined to do something about this affront to America and its people. I called the local Army recruiter and asked what the age limit was for joining the service. I was heartbroken to find out that I was too old to join in anything other than a civilian support role. Damn it, man! I want to fight! It was obvious that I was not going to be allowed to don the uniform and shoulder a rifle, so I begrudgingly accepted my fate and determined to do what I could to support our nation's efforts.

The biggest thing that I, and you, can do is NEVER FORGET! Always remember what happened, why it happened, and who did it, so that we can do everything possible to prevent it from happening again. It's the least we can do.

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Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium!

I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery!

I was sitting outside the math building on the University of New Orleans' campus, when I heard about it killing time after my Calculus class, when one of my friends asked me if I heard what happened. He told me that, "A plane had few into the World Trade Center." At first I thought someone had hit the World Trade Center with a simple single engine plane, because that had become something that happens every now and then in different cities. Then I learned it was an airliner, and knew that was no mistake. After a bit of a discussion, I went to my Geology class and then following that class the University canceled classes for the rest of the day. Everyone was in a surreal state not being able to believe what just happened, it looked like a good movie plot, but this, sad to say, was the real thing!

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My Lymphoma Blog and Updates:

I just got done watching the Presidential motorcade go by in downtown Sarasota,Fl.where Pres.Bush was that day speaking at A local school.I went back to work afterwords and A customer told me what had happen.I remember not feeling like working at all anymore that day,but I do have to do my job so I finished up and ran home only to find myself glued to the tv in disbelief.God bless all those who lost love one's on that sad day in our US.history.

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I was in criminal court.... No not for me. We tried to continue to get updates. It was to difficult so the cases for the morning where continued then we pulled a tv into 1 of the courts and watched the new.

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I wasn't there..... and you can't prove it.

I was asleep or on my way to bed when it happened. I was on the night half of my rotation that week, so I had gotten off work at 7am, and had to be back in at 7pm... The first I heard about it was when I got to work, and the first couple of people who told me were the kind that if they tell you the sky is blue, you check to make sure, so I figured they were pulling a fast one, as usual... After I got done with a call in the water treatment center at the steel mill I was working at, I went back to my office, at which time, I started seeing the news reports... So as much as I hate to admit it, I was pretty much oblivious to it until around 9pm that night... After watching about 30 minutes of the news feeds, I told one of the guys that I was working with that "We're gonna bomb the shit out of someone for this"...

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The Lord helps those who help themselves...
For everyone else, there's Democrats...

I was in training at work. Heard it on the radio comming in and at first though it was a radio prank.