9/11/01: We Will Never Forget
Where were you when the world stopped turning?
It's a time and place in your life you'll never forget: where you were when you first heard or saw what was happening on September 11, 2001.
I'll never forget. At the time I was working the night shift for a radio station in NJ, and I worked part-time during the day processing stock at the Gap. We were in the back room working away when someone came back and told us a plane had hit the World Trade Center. First thought - this must be a terrible accident, and it is probably a small plane.
Then we heard about the second plane and we knew what was going on. The mall I worked at was just opening, so a lot of us scrambled up to Sears so we could watch the news reports on TV. And that's where we watched the towers fall.
Like every other business that day, we closed and left to be with our families. I will never forget driving down Route 80 in New Jersey, one of the busiest roads in the state, with barely a few cars on the road. It was crazy.
But I think what I will remember most that day was the fear we all felt, the anger, the compassion for the victims and their families. But at the same time we had an amazing sense of unity in this country as we all came together to get through this terrible day.
Nineteen years later in 2020, it feels like that sense of unity has long faded. This country seems more divided than it has been in a while; we need to remember that sense of unity and how it helped us overcome. It could go a long way to helping us solve a lot of our problems today. Moving forward as a unified nation - isn't that the best way to honor those we lost that day?
Never forget.