Where was I on September 11, 2001?
A little past dinner time (8:40-ish PM), I was lounged in the living room couch eating cheese sticks with a thick Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Romans on my lap doing some reading for Dr. Karl Luff's Romans class in the morning. My dad sat on his favorite chair watching the news on CNN. I was set deep in the reading, Romans being my favorite class in the term that had just begun a couple of weeks earlier!
My dad suddenly blurted out, "Oh my Lord! Oh, Lord! God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! What is happening? God, what is going on?" For a moment I thought my dad was enjoying the sight of his youngest son immersed in a serious study of the book of Romans! I looked at my dad and tears began to roll down his cheeks, I shifted my view to the TV in the corner of the room, and saw one tower of the World Trade Center in flames! Text messages started flowing in-- our cellphones went off after every minute! The most important one coming from my sister who was then living in New York!
At that moment, news reporters and anchor persons came up with dozens of speculations about the tragedy, when, in matter of minutes another plane hit the other tower! Both buildings to collapse within two hours, destroying at least two nearby buildings and damaging others, killing 3000. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed into a field in rural Somerset Count, Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There are no known survivors from any of the flights. Analysts began to believe that it was an attack on America, and it was.
On the day of the attacks, the National Security Agency intercepted communications that pointed to Osama bin Laden. On September 27, 2001, the FBI released photos of the 19 hijackers, along with information about the possible nationalities and aliases of many.
I went to bed at two in the morning, but was never really able to catch sleep. I went to school that morning earlier than any other student with puffy eyes. I entered the classroom the following morning, Dr. Luff was there early. His head was bowed, his hands cupped over his face. "Jonathan," he said quietly, "that changed the world as I knew it...the world is never the same beginning today." Unable to find the right words to comfort the man, I remained silent. He then said, "It was not an attack on America. It was an attack on the world. But we will rise from the ashes."
Seven years later at 8:45PM, I was having dinner with Joy and Lennie at Pho Hoa Galleria, completely thoughtless of what happened seven years earlier. It was in the cab on the way home at midnight when I looked to my left and saw the Tektite Twin Towers when I remembered the attack on the World Trade Center!
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