I was driving to work in Wichita, the morning of September 11, 2001. It was a Tuesday, around 8:15 a.m. and I was on K-96, nearing the Hillside exit. My car radio was at 105.3 KXLK and I was listening to Kidd Craddick in the morning.
An unexpected report came in of a plane striking one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. I thought it was a terrible accident, but a few minutes later, it was announced that a second plane hit the other tower. And I knew.
Upon arriving at the office, I told my co-workers at the Sedgwick County Dept. on Aging what I had heard. They had been bantering, drinking coffee, unaware. We would watch the TV news for much of the day.
My wife, Liana, called, crying and begging me not to drive downtown. A plane hit the Pentagon; another crashed in a Pennsylvania field. Who knew where this would end? How vulnerable where we? Wichita has airplane plants, an airport, an Air Force base, a federal building. I was consoling, but remained adamant that I was going to go about my work just like any other day.
Nine months pregnant, Liana was already feeling more emotional than usual.
“Our baby will never know what it was like before 9-11,” she told me.
Ten years later, the world is – in some ways, different, in others, the same.
People made Christ-like sacrifices that day, laying down their own lives, while saving others. The 9-11 tragedy brought out the best in humanity.
