“..A date that will live in infamy…”-FDR, most likely to be quoted many times during this day and in the future when referring to today. I will not try to describe the events of today, I will leave that to those more informed than I, but I would like to give my thoughts and sympahy to those that are missing their loved ones. The buildings can be replaced, but the people that were in them can never be recreated. Since this is somewhat a journal of my thoughts and events I will describe what I feel and what happened to me. I was ghosting the impotant machines today and had developed some issues that seemed big at the time, but now seem small be comparision. I paid little attention to the things that a few people where mentioning in my attempts to solve the problems that were developing. Slowly as more people started to talk I realized that this was a big deal and that the crashing of two plans into the two seperate towers was no longer a simple accident. I continued to work but when I had got a chance while sitting at a machine I made a call out to my dad for information. I knew what he told me would be logical and would be only the facts that where being giving and would contain little speculation. This is a great feature of my father and I realized this later as I found that he was the person I called when I needed straight information. What I look back now and see was that the problems I was having and the events melded together in my mind somewhat without my knowledge. I found myself somewhat in a panic which at the time I thought was due to me not knowing what was happening with the machines I was working on, but now I realize that it was more of an overlay of the panic that I should have been feeling over the massive destruction. After the sorting out of the issues and correction of the problems I went to the break area that we have and finally saw the events that were actually happening. I found then that while the events were horrifying and unreal it also worked to calm me from my panic because I could see what the issues were instead of letting, what some would say, my active imagination run free. The towers had already fallen and I saw all the events play out from recorded tape. I then spent the day receiving information and feeling emotionally drained and snappy because I had put my energy into the roll out of the images and had used what was left in the thoughts for the people and events.
My thoughts: While I know that the events that are happening are real, it is still hard to wrap my mind around. There are so many facets of this even from a purely logical point of view. Add in the emotional aspects and I believe it will take days for this to work itself out in my mind. First and foremost is the fact that as I walked around today working on machines and whatever I realized that in the Trade Building there was probably someone walking around doing the same thing that 30 seconds later was dead. This opens up the mind track of how little control we really have over our lives and the events that shape them. There is also the aspects of what happened to me as I found out the events. Would I have been worthwhile had I actually been directly involved in the things? I find that a question I do not want to answer though I hope that the answer would have been yes. I also find myself amazed that I am living through an event that will later be talked about in the same order of things like Pearl Habor and the dropping of the Atomic weapons. Right now I must get some sleep I will write more tomorrow, until then read and then re-read Dale Brown novels, “The Hammerheads” and “Fire from the Skies” (i think this is the title) the second one is the one somewhat more like these events, but the first gives and idea of some things that might have to be done to stop these events.