Do you know where you were on 9/11/2001? I do.

On Monday, September 10, 2001, I was walking home from Union Station. I worked at the UN (in WDC) and was going home. It was a beautiful evening and I remember thinking, after reading reports about death and war from all over the world, that we were lucky in the United States. We are lucky that we have two giant oceans protecting us from all that death and violence.

The next day, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, was another beautiful day. I had forgotten about my thought from the night before but it would come back to haunt me later. The sky was clear and blue. A slight breeze swept thought my hair and it felt like a good day to be alive.

I was in my office working on the roundup of news I sent every morning to NYC when my boss poked her head in, Did you see what happened in NY?

I am a New Yorker so my default setting is annoyed and how can I be expected to know everything going on everywhere? She told me a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. Like most everyone, I assumed this was a Cessna. I went back to work. A few minutes later, she came in again and told me to come into the director’s office. There was a TV in there and both the director and her deputy were out. My boss was in charge that day.

We watched the aftermath of the second plane hitting the other tower. My boss wanted us to get…