Seems like a long time ago.

That morning I was at home and my mother called. I was half asleep and let it go to the answering machine. She said "call before you go to work, there was a crash and all the airports are closed". I thought "huh?" I turned on the news.

I worked at LAX at the time. The next day (I believe) we had a potluck for the United and American ground people. There were National Guard people we had to go through to get to work (lots of BIG guns). A lot of our planes were grounded for a bit. We had heard LAX was to be a target and I lived right near a fairly big refinery near the airport. Us non-uniform type people started wearing our uniforms (I'm not in uniform but have uniforms from when I wore them) to respect the other airlines and to be able to go through security more easily.

I know there are so many stories out there. A co-workers mother was supposed to be on one of the flights but she missed it.

If any good has come of it all, it has made us more aware of what's going on around us. As an airline person, we look around when we travel on vacation and I know the other passengers do too. It's not good to be paranoid but it is good to work together. The US has been buffered for a long time and this is, unfortunately, an introduction to a lot of peoples reality.