9/11

One year ago today we all stopped in our tracks. We were glued to our televisions and watched, unable to believe what we were seeing, and unable to deny that it was all too real.

At the hour the two planes hit the twin towers, my father was at Newark airport waiting for a flight to New Mexico. I knew he was flying out that morning, but I didn’t know when. Was he in the air? Phones everywhere were down so there was no way to reach him, no way to get in touch with the airlines. All I could do, like so many others, was wait. (It was a little more than two hours before I knew my father was home and safe. His flight had never left the ground.)

Next we heard about the Pentagon. Then the crash in Pennsylvania. For the first time in generations, millions of Americans suddenly knew what it was like to live in a country under attack. Was it over? Was it just beginning? Added to this uncertainty was the feeling of futility in being attacked by enemies who vanished at the moment of their victory, making it impossible to fight back. Or so it seemed at the moment. As we now know, a handful of Americans, the passengers of flight 93, were the first to respondrefusing to let the terrorists win the rest of round one.

In many ways all of our lives have returned to normal. Although normal is entirely different now. We have a new and stronger resolve to defend our free society as we continue our response to terror, begun on the morning of 9/11 by the brave passengers of Flight 93, and carried on by each of us throughout this indelible year.

In remembrance,

Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute