WTC attacks

I don't remember a thing about the Berlin Wall coming down - just that it did. I vaguely remember the day the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. I still have the front page section from the Oregonian about that.

On 9/11/01, I had taken the day off (I was living in Monmouth and working at the capitol) because Ben and Amanda Brewster were getting married at noon. I got up early to attend the endowment session with them, and Cari and Sara were going to go to the temple later for the pictures. When I got out of the shower, they had the TV on. I think that both towers had been hit, and the first one had collapsed. We watched live when the second tower went down. Drew called to make sure we knew about it. I stood there in my towel watching for a while. Somewhere in there, we all got through the shower and dressed. I ended up not going to the endowment session - Cari, Sara and I all drove to the temple together in time for me to go to the sealing. The wedding was rather subdued, of course. I'm just glad they didn't have their reception that day (it was already scheduled for about 10 days later). The rest of the day, Cari and Sara watched the news footage over and over and over and over until I was ready to scream.

Now I'm in DC with federal politics swirling all around, and the 9/11 Commission report was recently released, and McCain and Lieberman announced new legislation just yesterday to implement the Commission's recommendations ... I deal with the backlash of the World Trade Center attacks every single day as part of my job. Also, I just finished reading a pretty major commentary about it. So it's not "in the past" for me. It's still very much a part of the present.