The Dreadful Day found me sleeping. We did not have a TV, and were unaware of what had happened until a phone call alerted us. We made our way to the internet immediately (no smartphones back then, at any rate not for us; we sat down in front of a desktop computer).
There was no YouTube at the time (as I was surprised to discover while writing this today), so we must have found some other source for video: perhaps by way of Drudge? Likewise for news.
Shock. Horror. I suppose we must have known the world was changed irrevocably in that moment, but we had no clue as to the direction or nature of those changes. Mostly I think we kept staring at the screen, refreshing web pages, hoping to learn more and hoping that the madness was over: Is the President safe? What about the Pentagon? WHO DID THIS??
We watched in near-realtime as the towers fell.
I really have no memory of what my reaction must have been, but I suppose that the most likely thing is that I (like everyone else?) wanted revenge. I wanted the perpetrators to be caught, tried, convicted, and executed.
Those were very dark days. I will, perhaps, write more about what I recall my thoughts to have been in the days and weeks and months following The Day. But that must wait for another post.
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