When you get my age you have at least a couple of things that your mind will always remember. Some because they are just such special events in your life, others because they elicit a strong emotion of fear, determination, and uncertainty.
Sixteen years ago senseless attacks against our nation on 9/11/2001 still make me feel like I am suffocating.
The day of the attacks against many Americans on Sept. 11, 2001
1 (the irony of the date being the number you would call when things are going terribly wrong ) still makes me mad. This incident of outright disregard for human life would become embedded in my mind and heart. Terrorist had a multi point attack planned on the Pentagon, commercial airplanes, and the twin towers in New York City.
That day I was working at Eastman and had just gotten a ride back from a manufacturing lab to the lab where I spent most of my time. The driver of the truck asked me if I had heard that there had been a terrorist attack on the Pentagon and maybe in New York City. I replied "no." It was mid -morning and I had been out in a separate lab. In the lab I worked in, there was a TV in the break shack. When the truck dropped me off I went to see what was was happening on the TV in the break area.
What I saw first was the first tower of the World Trade Center with a large hole in it and smoke billowing from any opening on the large building. Then it was almost too much to watch as people jumped from the building to their death. Eighty some stories or more high. Where would the perpetrators pick next? And as I was wondering if I should go pick up my daughter at her grandparents, a second plane plowed into the second tower. I could not help but wonder if this was the end of the world.
It seemed like I was in a dream when I saw with my own eyes on the TV-- the first collapse of one of the two towers of the World Trade towers. People in the street were running to escape the plumb of dust from the building's collapse. And then when you think" how could this happen ????" The other tower falls.
Every year after 9-11-2001 they would play over and over the devastation of that day. It is one of those questions that we will never have an answer to, except radical Islamic men who believed by doing such things they would receive great rewards after they die.
This year in 2017, the hurricanes that are hitting Florida have taken over the news. But I am so glad that our at the time, President George W. Bush, spoke of the courage and sacrifice of the first responders, at memorials afterward saying "they ran into harm, when others were running away. " He also praised the courage of many Americans who helped each other on that fateful day.
I feel like we should always remember that day. The day when a small piece of our freedom was taken away from us. But I hope the people who planed this and carried it out will realize these powerfull concepts: Americans don't take lightly to even a small dent made in our freedoms; and the fierce desire in Americans to honor those that died an innocent death. If they misunderstand our patriotism and our desire to protect our own own by having a strong military and determined leaders who will stand up to cowards, then good. They will have cut their own throat and learned a lesson that needs to be taught.
In this world we will always face adversity, but with God on our side, we shall prevail. Love can overcome hate if we only will give it a chance.May God bless those who lost loved ones that day. And may God bless our country and keep it great!
Judy Hensley
9/12/2017
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