I can remember it clearly. I was home that morning, as our youngest was under the weather. She & I were in the front room, looking at books, when my wife, who was using the computer, hollered for me to turn on the TV. She'd gotten a news alert that a "small plane" had struck one of the towers.
I turned it on and knew at once that it wasn't any small aircraft. I was an aircrewman with the US Navy, and had also been to crash sites during my time in service.
While listening to the talking head describing things, I could see a small black dot in the background and there was no doubt what was about to happen. At first I thought that ATC had vectored an airliner wrong because of the 1st incident, that maybe something had gone haywire with ATC, or the comms, or whatever, but in just a couple seconds, I KNEW. I could see that dot grow bigger, and it was maddening watching this unfold while the CNN reportard just kept blabbering, as if he couldn't see what was happening on his own news feed.
Then the 2nd aircraft hit. I grabbed our go bags. threw them in the car, and told the Mrs that we were headed out of the area for a couple days. We stopped by the Middle School and picked up the older two kids. Geing as how we lived literally across the street from Bath Iron Works, one of the two shipyards building Navy Destroyers & Cruisers, I wasn't going to take the chance that the attacks in NYC were an isolated event. Then we started to get news of the other 2 aircraft, the strike on the Pentagon, and that was it for us. We spent a couple days at a KOA listening in through our radio(s) reading newspapers and letting the dust settle, as it were, before heading home.
I can't honestly describe my feelings those 3 days, because although most of it was crystal clear, image-wise, I was running on adrenaline and instinct, from both a desire to take care of my family and from my Navy training, where you go into a "crisis response" mode and run things automatically until it's over.
Even now I can close my eyes and remember it like it was yesterday, though as I said, the emotions I felt are all hidden away in some hard-to-reach place, and perhaps it's better that way.
Sorry to go on such a ramble, but sometimes it's good to "talk" about things.
