Salute Them Saturday!!

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Well I know many of you love my "Sick of them Saturday" postings, but I thought just for this week I would put that on hold and do "Salute Them Saturday". The reason for this of course is because today is September 11. We all know what happened on this date 9 years ago. So today instead of being annoyed with celebs, I am going to salute the heroes. So to all the firefighters, policemen, paramedics, volunteers, World Trade Center workers, Pentagon employees, pilots, airline passengers, and anyone else that assisted with helping the victims and those who paid with their lives I salute you and I will never forget that day!

I'm sure we all remember where we were when we found out what had happened. For me, it was my senior year of high school and I was in College English when the first plane hit. At this time I knew nothing that had happened. I remember going to my second class at 9:30 and walking in to my teacher watching the TV in the classroom which was showing the hit buildings. I had no clue what was going on. I didn't even know what the WTC was. I didn't know there were thousands of people working in it at the time. I remember at first everyone just thought it was a plane that had hit the building. Then the second plane crashed into the other building, one had hit the Pentagon, and another had gone down in a field in Pennsylvania (that was supposed to crash into the White House apparently). Of course now, we all knew what was really happening: our great country was being attacked! This was all foreign territory to me. I was 17 and had never experienced an attack on America by terrorists. I didn't know what to think. For the entire class period all we did was watch the news. I remember seeing the first building crumble to the ground and telling everyone "Oh my God, the building just fell down". Everyone was in shock even more now. There were still many, many people in that building trying to get out and it just crumbled to the ground. Class ended and we went to lunch were the TVs were also tuned in to the news. Throughout the rest of the school day this is of course all that we were doing. I went home from school that day and noticed how eerily quiet it was. I lived close to the airport so there were always planes flying overhead. Of course there were no flights anymore that day as they had all been grounded. I went to get the paper and looked at the cover and think that is when I realized how bad this all really was. The rest of the night all that was on TV and the radio was coverage from NYC. I am pretty sure it remained this way for the rest of the week. I also remember all sporting events from high school to professional being cancelled and I am pretty sure the malls were even closed early that day. The world was standing still and nothing would ever be the same again.

The rest of the week was pretty much all of the same thing. The Friday of that week I remember it was picture day for our school and for us seniors it was time to get our pics made for our class composite. We made and sold red, white, and blue ribbons with the money going to the Red Cross and we were all wearing them that day. Therefore, in our class composite picture, you can see the ribbons in every pic almost. I LOVE this fact. To this day when I look at that pic and see all those ribbons it makes me remember how our country came together in this tragic time. Everyone seemed united and petty arguments just weren't worth it. At the football game that Friday when they sang the National Anthem it meant so much more than it ever had to me.

Of course time went on and things started slowly getting back to normal. The new TV season started and we were allowed to laugh at TV shows without feeling guilty. For the first week all I did was watch the news. I felt guilty watching comedies when people were still missing and suffering. Rudy Giuliani was on the season premiere of SNL that year with FDNY and NYPD members and told everyone it was okay to be funny again. I think that is what I needed to hear. The New York Yankees had also made it to the World Series that year. This was before I was a huge baseball fan, but I know that I watched the games and I was rooting so hard for New York to win. I think everyone was (possibly even Red Sox fans!). New York seemed to be "America's team" and after everyhing that city had been through, we wanted to see them win. Of course they didn't and for this reason I feel extremely bad for the poor Arizona Diamondbacks because they became the most hated team in America.

I feel bad for the kids these days and those that were young in 2001. These kids will never know what its like to live in a country that is always on high alert for future attacks. They won't know what its like to be able to go on a plane without having to read a sign with the risk alert color (does anyone think we will ever be below yellow?) posted in the security line.

Sorry for my EXTREMELY long post, but I always feel this is a day for rememberance. I never want to forget just how major a day this actually is. Make sure you check out the videos below. They are sad, but then again, this is a sad day for all Americans.

Thank you for reading this post. Where were you on September 11, 2001??