Dear Kathryn,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and memories about Sept. 11, 2001 with the rest of the world. Your words and memories are heartbreaking and touch a chord deep within all of us. Like you, I remember where I was and what I was doing on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. My, now ex, husband and I were stationed at Ft. Hood in Killeen, Tx. He was away in California on a training exercise, and I was at home, just off post, with my disabled daughter, sleeping, when the phone rang. I grabbed the cordless on my way into the kitchen to start the coffee maker, as I hit the "talk" button on the phone. The voice I heard coming through the handset sounded like my mother-in-laws voice, but the words she was shouting were not like her at all. She is an upstanding Christian woman in all respects, but she was cursing like a sailor, frantic with worry about her son. It took me several minutes to understand what all of the "hullaboo" was about. She was screaming at me to turn on my television. As I clicked on the remote, I was just in time to watch the second plane slammed into the second tower, live, on national t.v. I remember shouting something to her over the phone and abruptly hanging up on her. I stood there in a daze for a few seconds, when it hit me that it was way too quiet outside on the street. I remember going outside to our driveway and noticing that you could have heard a pin drop. You have to understand that, living 1 mile outside of the free world's largest US Army base, there is no such thing as "quiet." There was ALWAYS something or another going on, 24 hours around the clock. After time, you learned to filter out the noises, almost like background static on a radio. You don't notice them anymore until they are completely absent. There was no sound, not even the birds twittering in the trees, on that morning. No one moved about on the sidewalk or in cars on the street. It was as if I was the only person left on the planet. That thought terrified me for a few moments, until my next-door neighbor walked unsteadily out of her house and joined me in the driveway.He husband was deployed with mine. We stood that way for a few minutes, neither of us speaking to the other, just standing there with tears running down our faces, in a state of shock.
Suddenly, the phone I still cradled in my hand, rang, startling both of us back into the present. I remember answering the phone, and hearing my husband's Rear Detachment Sergent's voice telling me that all planes had been immediately grounded until further, noticed due to the attacks, and that our husbands were safely on the ground at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, until such time that air traffic was allowed to fly again.
The next days and weeks flew by in a shocked, painful blur. I remember watching the sky alot. To this day, I still find myself looking up when a plane flies low overhead, and for a split-second of time, my heart hitches in my chest with fear and dread. The same thing happens whenever the T.V. breaks into regular programming with a "Special News Report." I don't think I will ever move past that fear.
I wanted to say Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for sharing your thoughts and memories with the rest of the world. You write eloquently and I enjoyed reading your work.
Sincerely,
Kimberly D. Huggins |
|
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
