Where were you on that day?

The question has been asked by several people today at school. Where were you on this day 5 years ago when you heard? A lot of people have these deep meaningful stories where they were in agony and so worried. Now, I'm not discounting that fact but rather warning you that my story is not as deep and meaningful. I mean, come on. I was 10. I remember that we came into our 5th grade classroom after lunch and our teacher turned off the TV very quickly and we could tell she had been crying. She told our class to sit down. She explained that two planes had just crashed into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon. She told us that some very mean people had done this to our country because they were jealous of the freedom that we had. My friend, Kieron, was extremely upset at this announcement because he had an aunt who worked there and I remember him wanting to go down to the office and go home. (She ended up having got out and was okay) I had absolutely no idea what the World Trade Center was. I had never heard of it in my life. So, the whole thing didn't really bother me at the time. I remember me and my best friend, Zac, had our own suspicions as to who was behind the attacks. We thought it was the Chinese because (and I told you this was a crazy story) we were having the Olympics in the USA unstead of China. And no matter what Miss Catteu told us, we were not going to be convinced otherwise. Zac almost threw his glasses away until he saw they were made in Taiwan. When I got home, the horror actually hit me. Over and over on the news they were showing planes running into these two tall buildings which seemed to explode on impact. It was really scary. Then I saw the Pentegon, with one side crashed in. I didn't understand why they couldn't put the fires out. I had always seen those Rescue 911 shows where the firemen go in, stop the fire, and everyone gets out ok. I can't remember how long it took for that fire to go out. But I do remember asking my parents every couple of hours if the fire was gone yet.

Ever since then, every year I have had teachers tell me that this is going to be the one landmark event that my kids and grandkids are going to ask me about forever, kind of like Pearl Harbor, Kennedy Assassanation, and the Challenger. I just hope that I never forget.