I slept. The world changed all around me, and I slept.

My wife woke me up in a shaking, excited voice, “Jon, get up! Terroristsattacked the World Trade Center!” I remember thinking that she must have beenwatching a movie of some sort, and I dozed off again. A few minutes later, Igot up, put on some sweats and a flannel shirt, and went downstairs to seewhat she was talking about.Rhonda’s eyes were wet and red with shock. She saton the edge of our recliner,her knees together, her elbows on her knees, andher chin in her hands. She was watching television, and again I thought thatshe was watching a movie. Attack on America, the headline said in bright redletters at the bottom of the screen. We were watching CNN.

Suddenly feeling the need not to stand, I took a seat on our couch. Thepicture on our screen showed the World Trade Centers moldering, smoking, andburning.The reporter spoke of chaos, of passenger airplanes crashing into thePentagon and into both towers of the World Trade Center. As we watched, thestructural integrity of the first tower failed, and the tower collapsed.Rhonda began to cry. I looked at the screen in disbelief. For some reason, Icould not get the idea out of my head that we were watching a movie. I had thesensation that we were being fooled, like the Orson Welles 1938 radiobroadcast of “War of the Worlds.” I knew, however, that this was not “War ofthe Worlds”; this was more like Pearl Harbor, this was War.

Not long after the first tower fell, the second collapsed in on itself. Duringthe second tower collapse, America lost many of its bravest men and women; thefirefighters and policemen we now herald as fallen heroes. I walked into thedining room to use the phone. I called into work to make sure that the watchwas paying attention to the message traffic. Working in militarycommunications, I knew that they would have a lot of correspondence to dealwith. My overly excitable Chief answered the phone. I asked to talk to someoneon watch, since I was obviously not going to get any answers out of him; hesounded as if he were going to have a heart attack.

“Well, we’re pretty busy, is this really important?’ He asked.

“I just wanna make sure that the watch is keeping a close eye” I responded.

“Oh, yea, we’re really jumpin’ here, everybody’s really busy, we got flashtraffic coming all over the place!”

I found out later that he was the only one running around.

“Ok, thanks Chief.”

I got off the phone and returned to the living room.My wife was in tears,horrified and amazed that such a thing could happen. I sat back down on thecouch and began to contemplate my own feelings. At first it seemed that I feltnothing. I remember wondering if I were so desensitized to violence that I wasincapable of feeling anything. As I watched the firemen, policemen, andvolunteers sift through the rubble, a desire came over me, a desire to help. Iwanted to do something! I wanted to be in New York or Washington D.C. I wantedto help, to put hand to brick and begin the immediate repair of what the evilmen had destroyed. I wanted to be surrounded by the smoke, ash, and debris. Iwanted to put goggles over my eyes and a handkerchief over my mouth and makemy way though the rubble the fallen towers had left. I wanted to findsurvivors. I wanted to hear the cries of victims, to smell the burning of thebuildings to feel the dust collect on my clothes as I worked day and night tofind survivors.

I could do none of those things. I was in my living room, watching television.We watched the news for the rest of the day, and when night came, I slept.