Posted by Kevin.....

This is a re-post of my original blog entry from 9-11-01:



September 11th, 2001

"Beautiful! It's a perfect day for flying."

My courier had just asked me how my flight was. The sky was clear and cool, and my early morning cargo flight to Fargo, ND went smoothly. It was almost 8:00am CDT as I walked through the lobby at Valley Aviation, flashing a quick smile followed by a "G'mornin'" to the young lady at the front desk. I shivered in the cool air as I walked to my car. I was preoccupied about my biggest problem in life at the moment. "Should I sleep ALL day, or should I get up and go to the movies? Maybe I will shop for some fall clothes."

I heard the news of the attack on the car radio while driving to my apartment. The station made it sound like it was a small plane, and that it may be an accident. They had no more information.

"I really should buy a nice coat for this fall." I thought to myself.

As I pulled into my parking spot, they said a second plane hit the other tower. I figured they were mistaken. Perhaps the plane clipped both towers. Besides, it must be really foggy in New York for someone to make a mistake like that.

I went inside and turned on the TV. They were showing the replay of the second plane. I cannot tell you the utter feeling of shock and disbelief I felt as I watched a replay of the second plane hitting the building. "That's an airliner!" I said out loud to myself. I recognized it as either a 737 or 767. It still made no sense to me. I could not think of any reason why two commercial airliners would hit the buildings. I whispered "Oh my God" over and over for about a minute, still standing in the middle of the room, still unable to understand what had just happened. Then they said it must have been deliberate.

I was floored. I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the TV.

A few minutes later, the picture on the TV suddenly changed to show a low skyline with old, white buildings. There was smoke in the distance. Peter Jennings was still talking about New York, but I said out loud, "That looks like D.C.!" "Um....we are looking at Washington D.C. now." said Jennings. My first thought was that it was the White House. The view on the screen was looking over the roof of what I recognized as a building near to the White House. I knew the White House did not sit on The Mall in D.C., and this view showed no monuments. Please God, no more, I thought to myself.

When they said it was the Pentagon, this was the first moment when I felt unsafe myself. Here before me was some kind of insane, violent, chaos occurring in several locations, and it appeared to be an ongoing thing. What was next? Philadelphia? Los Angeles? Minneapolis? I sat there, motionless, watching for an hour. Suddenly one of the towers collapsed.

Peter Jennings went silent in mid sentence. The camera angle change to show the billowing smoke. People were running. But they were blocks from the buildings. I knew what that meant, and my first thought was that the victims just went from hundreds to thousands. Next, I realized that there would always be that one tower standing by itself as a reminder of what happened.

But then the second tower collapsed. I felt that this was as bad as it could ever get. I just saw thousands of people leave this world.

I did as most Americans did and watched the coverage all day and into the night. My flight to Saint Paul was grounded. F-16s took off from Fargo Airport, roaring over the city on their way to the East Coast.

I volunteered to drive my cargo the four hours to Minneapolis on Tuesday night since there was no one else available to drive the truck. I returned to Fargo early Wednesday and was told by my company I was on standby to fly blood and medical supplies to Minneapolis, where it would be jetted to NYC. But I was not needed.

The "ground stop" for all commercial planes was lifted on Thursday, and I resumed my normal schedule. Fargo Airport Authority told me to make sure I knew the person who brought me my cargo that night. The flight back to Saint Paul was quiet. When I got home, it was then that I realized I had not slept more than a few hours in two days.