I was working graveyard shift at a motel. Around (9 AM ET) I turned on the TV in the lobby and discovered Things Happening.

The South Tower collapsed as I left the motel to go to the university campus for class -- I was listening on the radio. The field reporter had a hard time making the anchor understand that the ENTIRE TOWER was gone. By the time I got back to a television, the North Tower was also down, there was video from the Pentagon, and word of a fourth plane also down.

My (130 PM ET) class was European Government and Politics. The professor was also an expert in Terrorism. We didn't see much of him for three weeks, between professional and media consults.

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Bob Portnell, Sparks, Nevada
NAR #87762, NARTREK Silver, Not an actual Silver Snoopy awardee
"Flying Like It's 1980"

This.

And after I learned what had really happened, I felt personally violated in a strange sort of way, because someting I had in a small way helped to create—the Boeing 757—was used as a weapon against us all, as was another of my company's products, the 767, which was never (at least not then*) intended as a weapon. The number of 757s lost in crashes doubled that day.

Recently I learned that a good friend of mine worked in the Pentagon and was, for some lucky reason, at a meeting elsewhere, as his office was part of what was destroyed by the 757 that was crashed into the Pentagon.



*The 767, of course, is now being used as the basis for aerial refueling tankers, so it is at least an accessory to weaponry now.

__________________
Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE