Cup O’ Joe: A day never to forget

Nearly everyone remembers where he or she was on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. It is a day that will forever be etched into the minds and souls of a generation as four coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda took place against the United States.
For me, I was in my apartment in Rockland getting ready to head into work at the newspaper when one of my friends called and told me to turn on the television. He wouldn’t say why, just “turn it on.” I knew something must have happened, but never in my wildest dreams could I imagine the horrors that were about to unfold before my eyes.
    At this point, there wasn’t widespread alarm as only one of the two airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center. I remember journalists covering the story were surmising it was some sort of accident. Minutes later, when live footage of the second plane crash came across the screen, the terrible truth became more apparent.
Someone was purposely flying these jets into the building. Someone was attacking our country.
When I learned that two of the airplanes had come from Logan International Airport in Boston, I became sick to my stomach and had to sit down. My wife and I had just gotten married on Sept. 1 and for our honeymoon we went to Mexico. It was my first experience flying, and was not something I looked forward to. But I somehow got through the anxiety of flying. We flew out of Logan on Sept. 2 and returned Sept. 8, just three days before the attacks.
I immediately began to wonder “what if” scenarios. What if we had gotten married on Sept. 10 instead of Sept. 1? What if the attackers had chosen a different date for their mission? Were any of the attackers on the airplane we took, doing a test run? What else is going to happen before this ends?
I remember calling my wife to let her know what was going on. I also knew I had to get to work, but knew there was going to be very little work accomplished this day. We brought a television into our newsroom and watched in disbelief as the reports of hijacked planes unfolded.
Some of the older folks in the newsroom likened the situation to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Nov. 22, 1963 or the attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941.
Prior to 9-11, I knew nothing about al-Qaeda and never really thought that much about how Americans were viewed by other races and religions in foreign countries. All that changed in those moments in front of the television.