Five Years Ago

It's hard to believe that it's been five years since the worst terrorist attacks on the United States. In some ways, it feels like it was forever ago, yet in other ways, the wounds still haven't healed. Some of the emotions I'm feeling today are as painful as they were five years ago.

I was on the first business trip of my career. On Sunday, 9 September, 2001, I had flown to Orlando, Florida, and I had driven across the Florida panhandle to St. Petersburg. I was there for a beta test of the next release of the software I was working on for Symantec, Corp.

Everything was new and exciting. It was fun to travel and not worry about the cost. I was in a place I had never seen before, doing things I had never done before. I suddenly felt all grown-up and professional. I was representing a company that I believed in, working on software that would improve the network security of the United States Navy and Marine Corps.

On Tuesday, September 11th, however, my feelings would change. My co-worker and I were just arriving at the Raytheon facility where we had worked the day before to get systems up and running. We were planning on executing the test plan we had been given before we left our office in American Fork the week before. As we turned left into the business park containing the Raytheon facility, the first news broke: an airplane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York. There were few details. They were assuming at the time that it was a small airplane that had gotten lost or confused.

My co-worker and I went into the lab where we would be working that day and started working on our test plan. It wasn't until some hours later that we realized that nobody else had come into the lab. We were working there alone. We went upstairs to find out where everyone was and we found that nearly everyone in the building was in a conference room watching television. I looked at the television just in time to see the first World Trade Center tower fall. People were screaming and crying and I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I had been in a computer lab with no cellular phone coverage, no television, no radio... Because it was a secure lab, it didn't even have Internet access.

After a brief explanation of the morning's events, I immediately called home. It was my first reaction. My wife was in tears. She hadn't been able to reach me and had assumed the worst. She was incredibly glad to hear my voice. We had no idea what was going on and what would happen next. I wanted more than anything to be at home. I had no idea how I would get there, but my number one goal was to get back home.

We called the home office and we were instructed to go back to our hotel room where we would have a conference call later in the day to figure out what to do. By the time we had the conference call, it was determined that we would stay and finish the beta test. It appeared that the attacks were over and we weren't in any imminent danger. We decided that it would be best to continue on in our lives.

For the rest of the day and into the night, I watched the events of the day as they were replayed over and over. I was numb. I didn't know what to feel.

I ended up going home on Saturday, September 15th, arriving home a little less than 24 hours after I had originally been scheduled to return home. I felt blessed to be HOME at all, and a day's delay seemed so minor after the events of the week.

Now, five years later, I still don't know what to feel. I feel a mix of anger and hatred, sorrow and pain. But most of all, I realized then and continue to realize today how important my family is to me. Events like those of September 11, 2001 helped me realize what things in my life are important and what things don't really matter.

I hope the wounds of September 11th never fully heal. I hope that they help us, as a nation, continue to fight for the principles and ideals that are important--that really matter.