where were you?

For my Parents generation, everyone knew where they were when they heard Kennedy was shot. They remember lots of trivial things about that moment that make it seem alive again. For my Grandparents, it was Pearl Harbor. But for my generation, it will be where you were when you heard that the twin towers had been struck by Al Qaeda (not Saddam, you crazy 30%).

I remember getting up at about 9 something (I didn't have class that day until 10:30), looking out the window into the clear blue sky and feeling a pleasantly warm breeze on my face. The feeling of happiness and calm passed over me. I thought "what a nice day." Boy was I wrong. I turned on my computer and chatted with a mutual friend of my now wife's and mine, and she told me what happened. She is a woman who subscribed to the New York Times as a student and prides herself on being well-informed. So I belived her, yet it seemed so fantastic. So I went into the common room and turned on the TV...and like election night 2000, our TV didn't turn off for days.

What dark days those were, with the anthrax scare that followed. Yet we all had hope, we saw people coming together to do brave and simple things for the good of all and felt the condolances from our allies. Five years later, we can see of far Bush has pissed it away. No one trusts the U.S. government at its word any more (save those 30%), we have more enemies, more trained people trying to kill our countrymen, and less places to travel without feeling disliked than ever before.

I get a bit choaked up when I think about those firefighters rushing up the stairs, the people who carried disabled co-workers down 90 plus flights, the passengers who charged United 93's cockpit...but then I get so angry when I think about all those who have died in Iraq for a war of choice that should have been much further down the priority list (behind Iran, N. Korea, Syria, and certainly Al Qaeda itself).

Please use the comments section to tell me where you were on that fateful Tuesday morning.