A 9/11 story...

I was scheduled for a routine polygraph exam at 8:00 on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001. It was time for my full lifestyle update. At 8:45, I was sitting in a small, mirrored room wired to a polygraph machine. The woman administering the exam got up and left the room. She didn't come back for about fifteen minutes. During a polygraph exam, that's generally considered a bad thing,

When she returned, she shut down the machine and said we will have to reschedule. Those of you who spent most of your life in a job requiring frequent polygraphs know his is not usually good news. She then explained that a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. Her brother worked a couple of blocks away and she needed to check on him.

As I left the building to return to Langley, I watched the second plane crash into the World Trade Center on the monitor in the lobby. I remember being stunned. Like millions of others, I realized that what we thought was a tragedy was really an attack. To this day, I don't know if I watched that second plane hit in real time or as a news replay.

As I was driving to Langley, news of the attack on the Pentagon hit. I had many friends who worked there. There were also rumors of more planes in the air and other possible targets. I was driving to one of those targets.

I got a call from a friend checking in my whereabouts (as I normally visited a number of possible targets). He told me to go home as Headquarters was "locking down" trying to figure out what's next. On my way home, I heard that another plane had crashed somewhere in Pennsylvania... And then that the towers had collapsed.

Like most of America, my thoughts were, "What's next?"

I'm an "old soldier". I served twenty-two years in the Regular Army, half of it overseas. In the military, learned that you never know a person's nature until they are put under stress. 9/11 brought out both the best and the worst of America's nature. It stresses us as people and as a Country.

I will never forget the first responders, the firemen, the cops, the EMTs, the military, showing total disregard for their personal safety to help the fallen. These people are the best America has to offer.

I will also never forget a few immediately turn on our neighbors and fellow citizens who happened to be Muslim, from the Middle East, or even just brown. For some, this was just an excuse to "hate". I believe it is the nature of some people to "hate"... And 9/11 provided a convenient excuse for these people to fulfill their nature. I remember and am wary of those who chose to and still bear that "hate". Their nature could be easily turned on me, on my family, on my friends.

My observation on 9/11 applies today... "what's next?"