I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. I was sitting in my office at work, and I’d just made a phone call to a colleague upstairs. They said to me, “have you heard about the plane crash in America?”
I went straight to the BBC News website… or at least I tried to. It was really difficult to get a response from the site… I didn’t realise why then. One of my team managed to get on to Fox news, and revealed the news that an airplane had collided with one of the towers of the World Trade Centre in New York.
I thought exactly the same as everyone else at that point… what a tragic accident!
It wasn’t until we heard the news – literally a few minutes later – that another plane had collided with the other tower, that we had any inkling that this was anything other than an accident.
The wife was working in a high-rise in London on that day, and the prospect of another attack in the UK made her, and her entire office, very fearful.
I posted on LiveJournal that same afternoon. I also posted on the 12th about Bush’s restraint when he heard the news (although his follow up wasn’t so restrained), on the 14th about our local radio DJs being really somber, and again later than same day about the 3 minute silence.
It seems that memorium of September 11 is as relevant and important (if not more so) to people as November 11. 2002, 2003… that was around the time that the LiveJournal bubble burst for me, but I never forgot. Every year, I give just 2 minutes of my time to the memory of those that perished in such atrocious circumstances in that concrete prison.
Challenger, Columbia, Princess Diana, September 11, July 7, Tsunami, Heatwave, Madrid Train Bombings, King’s Cross…
I may not say, I may not post, I may not outwardly acknowledge… but I never forget.