I'd just gotten back from a fun-filled week in Ibiza with friends, I was still hung over when saw the planes crashing on the plasma screens of a big shop in Paris. What a cold shower it was. It makes me sick what some people can do to other people.
I was in the service at the time, at work. I walked in the office and everyone was watching TV. I gave a look to my troops like "WTF are you doing sitting around" one pointed at the screen. Once it was said that it was an apparent terrorist attack I could feel the hair on my neck stand up. Mostly I was trying to fathom the amount of people that were dying in those buildings at that moment. I felt helpless. Who did this? I really wish I could have had a hand in the rescue effort as I still feel helpless to this day. I've lost some friends along the way since then and it's always hard to deal with. Even though my military career has since ended I still work for the military doing the exact same job, just a different uniform. These young soldiers deploying at my work (and anywhere else for that matter) are my heros. They all volunteered to do this. I wish them all safe returns and I will always continue to put together the best birds I can for them, it's what I do (regardless of what my bean counting civilian management wants, you know how that is...faster faster more more.) If I get called tomorrow to come back my BDU's are still creased and hanging in the closet, it would be my pleasure. Even though all my old FNG's would probably be my boss now lol. It's awful how it takes a tragedy like that to conjure up any kind of patriotism these days. Kinda like when you never see your family until one dies and y'all meet at the funeral. All I can do is instill it in my kids and teach them that none of this is free, somebody payed the ultimate price for it and should be honored for thier sacrifice.
I was walking through Oslo. The sky was sort of a thunderish dark gray and I was in a hurry because I thought a thunderstorm was coming up, but nothing came. It was just a dark day. In a shop I overheard some people talking about a planecrash in WTC, but I only heard bits of it and couldnt believe what I heard anyway. When I got home I saw the news. Unreal and sickening. My thoughts go out to everyone who lost someone and to the brave firefighters.
The Jalopy Journal
