It was a Tuesday Morning......................

It was a Tuesday morning the alarm was switched from the annoying buzzer to a radio station only because I had listened to a football game on the alarm clock radio on Saturday. It was still dark when the alarm went off at 6 AM MDT. I got up grudgingly and showered. I had to be at work at 8, and Darcy also had to shower to go to the office. I had not yet taken the classes to recieve my Real Estate license. I showered and re entered the bedroom.

Darcy said a plane just hit the World Trade Center. I thought that she was kidding, she didn't know what sized plane nor how much damage, it had just been a news interruption that said a plane hit the World Trade Center. I thought it must have been a small plane, there would be more information. I had to put on my dispatch uniform, it was after all National Emergency Communications day. I got dressed quickly and went out to the living room to see what CNN had to say about this plane hitting the World Trade Center.

I sat mesmerized as they broadcast that a commercial airliner had hit the South Tower, I sat watching the other commercial airliner in the camera as it circled and hit the North Tower. It was then that I knew for sure that we were under attack, this was no accident. I was sick to my stomach, I knew that New York was 2 hours ahead of us in time, most of the offices would have people there for work. I also knew that each tower held offices that employed thousands of people.

I left to go to my job as an emergency dispatcher, 911 operator. Darcy called me on my cell about the time that I got to work and said that the Pentagon had also been hit. It was the most bizarre day I have ever worked in a dispatch center. Although we are a consolidated dispatch center, meaning that we dispatch for multiple agencies and jurisdictions, we are housed in the Iron County Sheriff's office building. One of the detectives for the Sheriff's Office brought a TV in and we watched as first the North Tower, then later the South Tower fell.

My heart sunk with them. It was eerily quiet, no one called to say that the neighbors dog was barking, heck no one called with medical emergencies, the phones and the officer's radios were silent, almost reverent. We sat and watched as lives changed forever in an instant. Relieved and the miracles of people who had escaped, and heart broken as the cameras zoomed in on the police and fire truck covered with the dust and ash, abandoned by heroes crushed trying to save the lives of complete strangers. Tears flowed freely as the hours dragged on forever.

My heart swelled at the report of the other heroes that forced the plane into a field in Pennsylvania, rather than allowing it to kill others in another city. Most of all I remember watching the smoke trailing off into an absolutely gorgeously blue, September Tuesday in New York City. It was such a beautiful crystal clear blue sky, the only thing marring it was the smoke. I also remember walking around like a zombie.

I drove home after my shift, I called my mother to tell her that I finally understood what she had felt when as a young girl, she listened to the reports of a Naval Base in Pearl Harbor Hawaii being bombed and our soldiers slaughtered as a war began. I understood the anger, frustration and, yes, fear that she felt. My National pride was hurt, and my heart ached for those lost, as well as those that they left behind.

The next day work was like it was on Tuesday, no one called, no one dared break the silence on the radio, it was as if the entire community was in a state of shock, the few calls we recieved were from people wondering what they could do to help the victims in New York. My community pride swelled, my pride as an American also swelled.

Eight years have passed, and those feelings still bring tears to my eyes. I am still frustrated and feel violated that someone dared to do that in our back yard, or on our soil. I am even more frustrated at the actions that we see today, people treat it like it was something that wasn't that big of a deal. I am sorry, It was and is a big deal. If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything!

It was a Tuesday Morning.............................................