MyMemoriesof911

It hardly seems like it's been three years since the terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon where they murdered so many people, not only in those
buildings but also in the planes. I remember like it was yesterday.

I remember sitting at my desk working as the news of the first plane hitting came
in; terrible but didn't seem like such a big deal until the rest of the story began
to unfold. We sat here stunned and basically unable to do anything as it got
worse and worse.

The radio was turned up over the intercom so we wouldn't miss anything.
We heard that all planes everywhere over
U.S. air space were ordered to land at the closest airport.
Occasionally we would walk over to one of the televisions
in the building but could only stand to watch the horrible
images for a few minutes at a time.

One of my co-workers received a call from her husband who worked in downtown
Chicago. He said that all the companies downtown were telling their employees to
go home because no one knew what to expect. All the major highways leading out
of the city were jammed with people trying to get away.

Our President and other top leaders were evacuated to separate secret locations.
Any planes en route to the U.S. were diverted to Canadian airports.
The entire country came to a standstill while we wondered what would happen next.

That evening and the next morning the horrible images were played and
replayed again and again over the media. Many people began searching
through the mountain of rubble for any survivors in an operation that
lasted for weeks; they found hundreds of bodies and only a few survivors.

All the Formax employees had been accounted for and all were safe;
however many were stranded at various locations across
the U.S. and also abroad. We received an outpouring of well wishes
and compassion from International customers and
other International companies.

For several days no planes could go into or out of the
country. The stock markets were also closed.

Our VP of Finance was stranded in the Amsterdam office.
One of the accountants with whom I work very closely had finally been
able to make his dream trip to Ireland, his first trip abroad and now he
could not get back home.

I received word from our financial advisors in New York who work with me
on our 401 (K) Plan that all of them were safe and were relocating to a
temporary location in New Jersey in anticipation of the stock
markets opening again on the following Monday.

There was such a feeling of patriotism and love for fellow Americans that
was greater than anything I had ever seen in my lifetime. Differences were
set aside; nothing else mattered except that we were Americans and we were
all in this together.

The President called for a prayer service on Friday. He asked churches to ring their
bells at noon and have prayer services at lunchtime so corporate American
employees could go there to sing "God Bless America" and to pray.

A number of people who didn't necessarily believe in God felt the need to
go to church and pray. It has been said many times "There are no atheists
in fox holes."

I had just returned to work from my knee surgery and
was walking with a cane; the church had steps so my
co-workers had to help me up and down the steps.
During the service we sat together and held hands as
we cried. We listened as the organ played "God Bless
America" and tried to sing through our tears.

We watched stunned as images of Middle Eastern people were shown
dancing in the streets over the devastation and murder of innocent lives.
How sick are these people?

Over the next few days I heard and saw the fighter jets as they
flew overhead and made that awful noise as they broke the
sound barrier. No other planes were allowed in the air.
This was a sound I hadn't heard since I was a teenager
and it is quite scary; sounds like a bomb going off!

I had to make special arrangements with a European payroll service to get
pay statements to our European employees since no planes were allowed
to fly except for the fighter jets. Our company could not send parts by plane
to any of our customers, neither could our servicemen go to them.
We certainly couldn't ship any of our large machines.

The Tailiban in Afghanistan were given an ultimatum: Turn over
Bin Laden or suffer the consequences. They didn't, so on the
Sunday after 9/11 our troops went in and started the operation
to drive the Tailiban from power.

Early on Monday just before the Stock Markets were to
open again, I received a call from our VP of Finance
who was still stranded in Amsterdam. He asked me to
transfer him into my boss's office and to go in there
myself because he wanted us to log onto a financial
site and let him know what was happening.

The controller and I sat behind closed doors talking to his boss and
watching as the stock markets opened and the prices fell and fell
and fell and fell lower and lower. It appeared there would be a crash
but at least now the system has safeguards that stop all trading
once it reaches a certain low. We discussed the impact this was
having on our employees' retirement savings plan and what our actions
should be. We now have a whole new conception of disaster recovery.

One lady I know was separated from her husband because of some
serious problems. She said she could not allow him to visit with the
children (who loved their father dearly) until all this was resolved.
I reminded her that we have no promise of tomorrow and that I thought
she should let him have the visits then because he was good to the
children and she should not keep them from him. She agreed.

It's such a shame how quickly some of us forget;
that many have gone back to hating people who
are different; that atheists are demanding that all
reference to God be taken out of our public lives;
that people no longer see the need to pray and
seek after God.

Driving to work this morning I was very reflective and thankful;
thankful for roads that I can drive on, and for a car to drive,
and for the beautiful woods I see along the way, and for
my house and everything in it, and for my family that are still
with me, and for all the other things we so often take for granted.

I have a dear friend in Hawaii who experienced the tragedy at Pearl Harbor.
Her husband was stationed in the Navy there when it was bombed.
The license plates on their car states that they are "Pearl Harbor Survivors."
I can only imagine how she felt after going through a second event like 09/11/01.

These terrorists are busy all over the world killing innocent
people in Israel, in Bali, in Russia, in Iraq, and in other places.

Our way of life as we knew it has been changed forever.
As we lived through all this and survived, we changed and
I hope we became better people for it.

Some people think we can talk to these terrorists or that
if we leave them alone, we will have peace. We forget
that these people are mad men and that they have been
attacking Americans and other innocent people for years;
they will stop at nothing and it gets worse and worse.

What should we do? The only way we will have peace and the only
way Americans and all other peace-loving people will be
safe is to rid the world of these sick madmen. We can't
do that by sitting in our houses. Yes war is bad but many times
it becomes necessary. I support our President and his efforts
and our troops as they fight to protect us.

Most importantly, we need to seek after God for He is bigger than the terrorists
but He will not protect our country if we continue to forsake Him. We need to
pray for our leaders that they especially will look to God for guidance and
we need to pray before we go to the polls on November 2 that God will
impress on us the right people to elect for our leaders.

Our prayers should be like the one found in this song:

There were many heroes, many people who worked
diligently to save lives. Here is another aspect, a tribute
to dogs who were used in the rescue effort.

Link to page honoring the dogs of 9/11:

http://www.dogsinthenews.com/issues/0109/articles/010915a.htm