Maine’s Connection To 9/11

So it was 19 years ago I was in a photography class in East Windsor, CT while we were listening to the radio developing pictures, and as we were all silently having a few conversations here and there, a kid by the name of Dan Starvish said to the class, do you guys hear what they just said? He seemed startled as he continued to say they just said a plane crashed into building one of the World Trade Center.

At this point, we were all confused, and we figured maybe it was just a small Cessna plane, some wacko guy that wanted to end it all or something. We went back to developing our photos. Dan spoke up again and said another one just hit the other building! We were all stunned! The TV in our classroom didn't work, so we couldn't see the carnage. It was only the next period that we could digest what was going on and then see the devastation. We watched planes hit over and over again as The TV stations kept showing the video every 20 minutes, and each time you saw it was like it just happened for the first time. There was one network that even showed people jumping from the building to avoid a fiery death.

Nobody knew who this was or why they had done it, and then the news started to trickle in later on that evening. We knew who the hijackers were; we knew how they got the planes, we knew that a flight went down in Pennsylvania because some of the people on the plane overtook the hijackers because they wanted to prevent more loss of life. It was a day that will forever be seared into the memories of Americans from every background.

19 years later...

This past January, I did a remote broadcast at Portland Jetport, promoting an airline that had more service to Cape Cod. I realized at that point that the flight 11 hijackers who took the plane from Boston had come through this same airport they stayed at the exact twin tower-like hotel over near the mall. I was stunned realizing that although this event had taken place so long ago, I was so close to a part of history. Yes, I have flown out of New York before yes, I've even flown out of New Jersey and Boston, but there was something about being at the Jetport felt like I was on like hollow ground. This is the airport where they were able to get through and commit their acts of terror. This is nothing against the airport itself or the people that operated it; it was just so close to it all that had me shaking. Today being 911 day, it just makes you say "holy crap. this really happened!" Even though I saw it on television, even though there are memorials, even though they have two beams that go up in the Sky to symbolize where the twin tower stood, this really happened, and it started here!

With you being a Mainer and reading this, what are your thoughts? How did 9/11 affect you, especially knowing that it started here?