In Memory of Nine Eleven

Fifteen years ago our daughter woke us up with a phone call telling us to turn on the television. Even fifteen years later it is difficult to describe our reactions of  confusion, fear, horror and disbelief as we watched what unfolded that day. The images will never leave us:

Passenger jets flying into one and then a second tower of the World Trade Center in New York, 
The pentagon with a bite taken out of it,
The twin towers collapsing and falling, one at a time, in slow motion,  sending a dark, choking cloud of dust, ash and papers roiling down the street, and leaving a pile of rubble and jagged steel, 
The people jumping to certain death from the highest floors,
The president looking dazed as he was given the news whilst reading to school children,
The silent skies  as all planes were grounded.

There were also the stories:
The bravery of the first responders,  and those who followed,
The news of a plane crashing into a field because some brave souls on board tried to prevent it from crashing in a more populated area,
The 10,000 people of Gander, Newfoundland who  cared for the 6,600 passengers aboard 39 grounded flights headed to the United States which were diverted there,  
And so many individual stories of ordinary people beginning another day suddenly caught in an incomprehensible terrorist attack.

It is also impossible to forget the aftermath of these attacks:
A senseless war in Iraq.
The rise of Al Quaeda and ISIS.
The destabilization of the Middle East.

It is hard to say what course history would have taken if those planes were not flown into those buildings, or if different decisions had been made, but  they were, and they marked a turning point in history which can never be reversed. We must not ever forget….