Thread by @Doc_0

We heard about it on the radio, which is where our office got most of its news in those days. Like so many around the country, we thought a pilot had made a terrible mistake and plowed a small plane into a skyscraper by accident.

It's not easy to describe to young people how it felt to learn the truth - the sick, numb horror, like you suddenly feel queasy and then look down to notice that one of your hands is missing. I guess movies evoke the feeling fairly well with slow zooms and violin strings.

Some clients started telling us on the phone that something bad was happening in New York. We dug up a little old TV set and got it hooked up just in time to see the second plane hit. The blood drained from our faces. We were too shocked to scream.

We mock fictional characters who stand dumbfounded in the face of horror, yelling at them to run, or fight, or do something, but that's what people often do in the absence of long and hard training to act differently. It takes precious moments to process the unbelievable.

It took us about ten minutes to really process what we were seeing, as I recall. There were some muttered curses. Many sentences were begun but left unfinished. Nobody knew what to do. Nobody knew what might happen next.

We routinely traveled across the country on business. Few of us had cell phones at the time, so our switchboard lit up with friends and family calling to ask if we were okay. My mother cried when I picked up the phone. She couldn't remember if I had a trip scheduled that day.

"We're under attack," I told my mom flatly.

She was old enough to remember Pearl Harbor as a child.

"I know. We'll win," she replied.

And then we noticed someone in the office was missing.

Her husband told us she was on a plane inbound to New York City.

It was late in the afternoon before we learned she was okay, her plane diverted to Canada and grounded safely.

There were so many rumors on that day, so many horrors lurking in the shadows, so many true reports we doubted at first because they sounded unbelievable. The news was on in every shop and restaurant. I remember a lot of people going out because cowering at home felt wrong.

In the days afterward we really did come together, in a way that would be as difficult to explain to youth today as the horror of that beautiful morning. There was a widespread feeling that everything had changed forever, that we'd never forget, we'd never let it happen again.

We learned the story of United 93 and realized we weren't as soft as both we and the enemy thought we were. Honestly, we were probably as surprised as al-Qaeda was to learn that we are still the sons and daughters of lions and eagles.

We didn't just take the fight to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan with our troops. We beat them right there, that day, that hour, in the sky. We rolled.

It was amazing to realize we could do that, in September of 2001. We had nightmares about being on United 93, but also dreams.

If you were around for 9/11 and you swore you would never forget, remember that oath. Remember the living beside you and the dead behind you. Remember the day you learned evil is real and you swore to fight it forever. Be proud that you are the chosen enemy of monsters.

My mother died suddenly two months after 9/11, two months to the day after she spent the morning frantically calling my office to find out if I was on one of the planes.

She never found out if we won.

Neither have I.

/end