The Flight That Fought Back

It's been five years since the attacks, and watching this show this evening brought back all the horror that rocked our country back in 2001. You want to talk about absolute heroism...these men and women on this plane put all personal agendas aside that day and sacrificed their lives to save others...the ultimate outward sign of love for mankind...

I'll never forget that morning. I was in class with my kids when our principal came on the P.A. telling us of the first World Trade Center bombing. With all the classrooms equipped with TVs, most of the teachers turned the sets on only to witness the 2nd plane come crashing into the other tower. At that point, one of the young ladies in my classroom became hysterical because her father was suppose to be in New York that morning on business. Bringing even more anxiety and fear to to all of us, within an hour, our school secretary received an anonymous phone call that a bomb had been planted in our school. Within minutes, the entire student body and faculty were out of the building at one of the ball-fields, awaiting instructions from police. The sight of bomb squad vans and police dogs on the roof was just an incredibly sobering experience- not to mention the pandemonium that developed outside as we all tried to account for our kids.

Shortly thereafter, the police asked for all faculty members to reenter the building and scope out our classrooms and hallways...looking for anything suspicious. Honestly, at first we all thought that they were joking, but as they explained- we knew the school and its belongings better than they, and they wanted us in there to assist them. So off we went...As it turned out, the whole episode was simply a hoax, but nevertheless, a frightening experience. Everyone that day just wanted to race home and be with their families, but we needed to stay with the kids, and we truly felt that it was in everyone's best interest/ safety to remain at school and allow for things to settle down a bit.

Coming home that afternoon, I remember being glued to the TV watching the episode unfold over and over again...thinking to myself, "what could possibly drive someone to such hatred and utter vindictiveness to kill so many innocent people that day?" I would like to think that something like this will never happen again in my lifetime, but I think we all know better. My prayer, though, is that my kids (Marie, Josh, and Sarah) will be able to read about this in their history books one day and truly reflect and feel absolute gratitude for the day that our country fought back...Let us not ever forget.