A Moment Frozen in Time

There was song by Alan Jackson that was recorded almost immediately after 9-11-2001 titled “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?”

I know a lot of people here at this site and others across the country are going to be writing on this topic today. Many of us will be silently thinking of where we were indeed.

For me, I was working for the USPS at the Archer Ave. Station in Queens NY. I was listening on my little radio that morning sitting at the letter size case, casing mail for that morning’s delivery.
When the first reports came in it was believed to have been a small commuter plane that had somehow lost control and hit the WTC. But that was quickly dispelled by eyewitness reports that had started pouring in the station I had been listening to that day. Additionally, within the hour I’d say came the reports of Flight 93, and the attack on the US Pentagon.

A few of us went up to the LIRR platform and could see the plumes of smoke rising from the first tower. The station had a cross over bridge that was used for connecting to various trains and so afforded a good view, being only about five miles away from what would later be called ground zero.

There already many other folks there as well, and we stood in unbelieving silence as we were watching the events unfold. My group headed back to our station probably right around the time the second plane hit so I did not see that, but found out by the time we got back to the station.

The TV that was in the lobby, was blaring loudly as customers and employees watched in horror as the first tower came down and later on when the second fell too.
No one, to my recollection, of those events of was ashamed to be an American that day.
　
For me, the words “Let’s Roll” will forever in my mind be equal to FDR’s famous line’ A Day of Infamy”

So as the song asks; Where were you?