9/11 by Heidi

  Ten years ago.. It doesn't seem that long ago.  September 10th, 2001  I worked late. I think it was either 11 or Midnight. I was so busy.  We had a bunch of military come in to practice. I went home tired, but enjoyed it!  I stayed up late with plans to sleep in. I worked at 1 the next afternoon. 
  Sometime Tuesday morning the phone kept ringing. I finally answered with a firm "WHAT"!  It was my Mom. She told me to turn on the tv, a plane hit the World Trade Center.  I turned on the tv and was shocked.  I called my friend Sarah. She is a controller in NYC. I knew she wasn't at work. We talked and could not believe what was going on. Then a plane hit the pentagon. She had to go, her father worked there.  ( He was fine.)
    I got a call from work asking me to bring in some food. The people there were not allowed to leave. I stopped at a grocery store.  It didn't feel right.  It felt like to normal of a thing to do with so many people suffering.  When I got to work we had to take turns watching the radar and the airport to make sure no one tried to fly.  We spent hours watching news coverage.
  We also heard many stories from other controllers around the country.  The guy in Boston who dropped his wife off at the airport and drove to work. He got to Boston Center to learn his wife's flight had hit the WTC.  The woman who always said "Good flight", but that day said "God bless" to AAL11.  3 days of no airplanes is not possible in my job.  It was the strangest thing.  We did have a few crop dusters try to get out. 
    We finally got the all clear and planes few again.  There are some stricter rules, we are very fast to react if a plane does something unexpected.  Things in my job will never be the same.

These were the messages we got at work. I hope to NEVER see anything like this again.

 Since then I have flown over ground zero in a helicopter.  I get upset when people don't fly a flag on special days.  If I had the money I would buy everyone a flag.  I can not hear Taps and not cry. When the printer at work prints we don't ignore for a few minutes.  I have to check the news in the morning before I leave just in case. Not that I am paranoid.. I just don't want to show up at work all cheery and find out something bad happened. 

I will never forget.