I didnt know anyone there.

I did see Air Force One flying over West Omaha when I was driving down the street to get to my job at WalMart that day. I was late for work (took my mom to the ER for chest pains...my dad worked at that hosp, so he stayed with her) When I first saw AF1, (when he was arriving) It scared the hell out of me. There was this huge airplane in the sky, and I knew all planes had been grounded. Then I looked again. I'd seen AF1 before a few times, I've even been on one of the planes that had been used as AF1 once. (at an air show)

Then I saw the fighter jets, and realized it was the Air Force escort. (I'm an Air Force brat) At the time, seeing the fighter jets made me feel better...at the time I thought that seeing AF1 was what made me feel better, but now I think it was seeing those fighters.

I got to work, and the ladies I worked with in the fabric dept were just nasty to me for being late. At the time, I thought they were just <a bad word> but now that it's been a few years, they were probably just as freaked out as I was.

The store manager came up to me later, handed me a really ugly hat with American flags stuck all over it, and had me walk around with a sign and a basket, told me to ask people for donations to the Red Cross.

Later that day, another one of the managers grabbed me and asked me to come up with something "crafty" to sell at the front of the store in exchange for donations to the Red Cross. I sat and crocheted little yarn circles with red, white and blue yarn for the next three days. Taught a couple of other people to crochet to help me keep up. We raised something like $3,000 for the Red Cross that Walmart matched.

Got fired two weeks later. No one was shopping, (everyone was home, glued to their tv's or scared to go out) so the management panicked and started firing everyone they could. Interesting that the only department making money those two weeks was the craft department (my department) because everyone was coming in buying anything that resembled something patriotic.

A few weeks after 9-11, I bought a bracelet with the name of an FDNY firefighter who died at the WTC. I wear it every year on 9-11 to remember him and everyone else who died.

The firefighter's name was George DiPasquale, of Ladder Company 2. I never knew him, his name was chosen randomly for the bracelet I got. From the news reports I've read about him, he and his ladder company were in Tower 2 when it fell.

I'm scared that day will happen again somewhere else (and it has...London, Mumbai...) I guess I dont understand why people feel that they need to kill in the name of god. Must be the atheist in me. I just dont get it. I think killing in the name of whatever god someone happens to be killing in the name of...it's just an excuse to justify the killing. There's no reason to it.