Where Were You (9/11/14)

In observance of what took place on this day 13 years ago I thought I would take a minute to reflect on where I was.

Tuesday, September 11th, 2001 I had just finished class for the morning, and uncharacteristically I decided to stop at “The Rat” on the University of Miami campus. It was the typical college pub/restaurant that had so-so food and overpriced pitchers, but it had huge flat screen TVs mounted in front of the most comfortable couches on campus. I had been up most of the night cranking out a paper for a statistics class, and decided to take a detour on my way home for a little power nap.

I woke up an hour later to the sight of a jet slamming into the side of a building. My first response was, this producer had some pretty out of this world special effects. It wasn’t until I turned up the volume and saw CNN plastered along the bottom third of the TV screen that I realized this wasn’t some fictional scene drawn out of the imagination of some Hollywood screenwriter. This was either the biggest screw up in modern aviation or the act of a madman. When I saw the second plane slam into the other tower it was pretty safe to say that it was no accident.

I spent the next couple of hours trying to track down a host of friends that were either in New York or who had recently joined the military in some capacity to see if they were okay. Talk about an act of futility; when I finally got through all I could do is leave a lot of messages.

I think it’s important to look back at events like this and reflect. If we hadn’t experienced the .com bust it was more than likely I could have been up in New York sitting in some highrise the day those events unfolded. I could have been in the process of going through Marines Officer Candidate School had I not been rejected by a recruiter on the basis of a medical disqualifications.

It’s impossible to say what could have been, you can only say what did occur. So on this day I would ask for you to observe a few minutes of silence for all the people who have been lost or have personally sacrificed as a result of those horrific events Tuesday, September 11th, 2014.