It's one year later. Where were you then? Where are you now? How have you changed?

This is certainly one of the greatest threads ever on FR, if not the greatest, because we are sharing our experiences of a monumentally important day. Can only speak for myself, but this thread is bringing me a healthy measure of comfort. Although we all experienced it from our individual perspectives, we all experienced it together as Americans under attack. For the first time, I have a first-hand sense of what the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War and WWII generations all experienced.

Unfortunately, I don't believe for one minute that the date we are all remembering, 9/11/01, is the last such attack. I really fear another attack may be just around the corner. The USS Cole was hit in October 2000, the first WTC attacks in 1993 happened in February. They seem to prefer to strike in fall or winter. I just feel "in my bones" that if they are capable of striking again, it will be soon.

One of the interesting aspects to me is that for a brief time there the country shrunk. I'm always amazed at the sheer size and diversity of America (living out west where we actually put space between cities I get more of a feel for the size than a lot of people back east, stuff like the internet helps to understand the diversity). But for 9-11 and a few days after the whole country was tiny, we fit into the 5 buroughs of NYC. Thanks to TV the skyline of NYC is a very important part of America, that's something that still gets me is old skyline shots (I'm a huge Sopranos fan so I get to see the buildings in the opening credits a lot). But even the "new" skyline shots you see in now, there's a definite feel of something missing.

And thanks to the 6 degrees of seperation phenomenon we're all connected in some way, the person most seperated from the event I know is 4 steps removed from someone that died that day. I know people that know people that died that day. I know someone that was interning in the hospital. A friend of a friend worked across the street, this person blows me away with their brilliance, they're a broker with an interior office, had no idea what was going on, but saw the markets drop like a stone. Said to herself "only time I've seen this was when they tried to blow up the WTC, I'm leaving". She was halfway across the George Washington when the second plane hit. The same connection I have to that person also connects me to someone in the Pentagon that worked in the attacked side until the remodeling and was scheduled to move back to that side in a couple of weeks.

In some way this struck close to home for everybody.

I was at work. There is a 13" tv in my lab which is typically turned on only when a tornado has been spotted and people need to monitor the storm.

I turned that tv on shortly after someone said a plane had collided with one of the towers. That tv stayed on all day, as people came by, watched awhile, then left when they could take no more.

I did not know anyone who died that day, but no matter. We were all attacked that day(and we are all still targets)so I decided to consider each and every individual killed as if they were blood-kin and friend. I refuse to "move on", I refuse to put that black day behind me until the evil that made them is destroyed.

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