At 8:42 am, the start of the workday, a hijacked plane from Boston crashed headlong into the World Trade center. Shortly thereafter, the second tower was hit. At almost the same time, another hijacked airliner crashed into the Pentagon.
Terrorists.
Both towers in New York are gone and a good chunk of the Pentagon is in an impenetrable cloud of smoke and rubble, rendering an entire nation in shock.
Everything is in chaos in the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania). Everything is closed... the Turnpike's a parking lot... bridges are closed... the major cities evacuated... school's cancelled... work's cancelled. At the mall we are told to leave immediately.
This is unreal. Impossible. The news coverage doesn't even look like the US... it looks like the Middle East or some other country that we’re accustomed to seeing in shambles. We're not supposed to have war zones here. This is America… land of the free, home of the brave. This is impossible.
And it's not over yet. If this was government-sanctioned (Hussein's been promising us a war for ten years)... that means World War Three, ladies and gentlemen.
266 dead just from the passenger planes... no telling what the casualties might be from the buildings... in the thousands. Flags had better be at half-staff all over this country. Blair (in Britain) has declared that the world democracies must band together. That spells Allied Forces all over again. We just need to figure out who the Axis ones are. The media have been calling this the second Pearl Harbor all day... and comparing the chaos to disaster movies like ID4. I’m asking myself “What sort of person attacks the world’s super power? What did we do to deserve this?” Meanwhile in Palestine, citizens are celebrating.
I never thought I’d live to see a Day That Will Live In Infamy… not this close… not at all.
This was an attack on freedom... and whether this was an official attack or some independent one... the US will retaliate. Yes, these are fighting words. No, I don't want to see my country go to war. But this sort of thing should not happen... and it will not go unpunished.
New York City is a city of hopes and dreams and has been since the mass immigrations in the 1800s. Broadway's bright lights, the call of the stock exchange, the colors and planes of the museums... whatever you do, you can do it in NY.
But not today.
Today, the city that never sleeps has been knocked unconscious... and the rest of the nation will never be the same again.
Thousands of hopes and dreams died today and our belief in our national security has collapsed as surely as those towers. But out of the ashes, this Phoenix will rise again.
Hit the US with a tragedy... and we hit back twice as hard. Sadly, it is during these times that this country sets aside its internal, petty differences and bands together. Maybe this time it will last beyond the tragedy.