From the Heart

Quote #1: ‘It felt like I was helping, I was contributing. I was affected by the whole event that was 9-11, as if I was violated. Who were these people that they thought they could come to my country and do this? On another level, I have a propensity for levity, that even in the worst circumstances I’m the guy cracking the jokes and finding humor in the moment. Here it just couldn’t be found. I wanted to say something to the guys who were coming through the line and getting food. They’d just come from Ground Zero, getting off a shuttle transporting them to and from the site. I wanted to say something to make them smile, to lighten their mood, make them feel better somehow, but there was nothing to say. Nothing. I’d didn’t dare say a thing. You knew it was neither the time nor the place. What they needed was someone to give them a hug, to tell them it was going to be okay. They needed someone to shake them and wake them up and say ‘hey, it’s all a dream.’

Quote #2: ‘When I first heard of the attacks on New York City I was working in a call center in Shelton, Connecticut. As my friends and I gathered around a television hung from the center’s ceiling, I first saw what I thought was a bizarre aviation accident high above the streets of New York City. I stood thinking about the tragedy and those that had died. I wondered how New York’s firemen were going to remove the damaged plane from the building without it crashing to the streets below. It must have been 80 floors above ground. As smoke steadily bellowed from the crippling hole on the side of the tower, something else caught our eyes.

It was a second plane.

I will never forget the sudden rush of disbelief. This was no accident. As the airliner turned and banked toward the second tower, a sense of impending tragedy and helplessness overwhelmed me. I wanted to reach out and tear the plane from the sky, but I couldn’t. The massive jumbo jet swooped in with an eerie silence and disappeared behind the back of the second tower. Within seconds it tore through one side of the second tower and exploded massive flames out into the New York air through the other. It was horrible. Suddenly a cold wave of silence fell over everyone. We could almost hear each other breathe.

This was no accident. This was a massive and unprecedented attack on innocent American people. This was terrorism.’