9/11 Began as Another Ordinary Day

YouTube - September 11, 2001 - As It Happened - The Initial Bulletins

September 11, 2001 was just another ordinary day.  In the area in which I live, it was a nice, warm sunny day.  The day that 9/11 happened to fall on was Tuesday.  I woke up and got dressed to head to work.  At the time I was working two jobs simultaneously.  I was working approximately 48 hours at the factory job that I was working on day shift.  Business was was very steady during that time.  I was working six days a week at the factory.  The only day of the week that I was off from work was Sunday.  That was a day of rest and church for me.  During the evenings five days a week I worked at McDonald's.  On the morning of Tuesday Sept. 11, I was driving in my car listening to gospel music as I headed to work that fateful day.  I believe I stopped at McDonalds to purchase a cup of coffee, like I normally did a number of times.  It was just an ordinary day.  Prior to this day, there was nothing significant about the date September 11th.  There were a couple of people I personally knew of who had birthdays on that particular date.  There was also a late Congressman by the name of William H. Natcher (he died in 1994) whose date of birth was on September 11, 1909.  He represented the 2nd district in Kentucky.  The groundbreaking of the Pentagon in Washington was on September 11.  I believe the year was 1941.  I believe the Pentagon was completed in 1943. 

I can recall some of the news events that took place prior to 9/11.  Several months in November 2000, America had the closest presidential election ever which took a month following the November election in a number or recounts to determine George W. Bush as the winner.  In October of 2000, the U.S.S. Cole was bombed, in which Osama bin Laden was behind it.  Prior to 9/11, I had never heard of Osama bin Laden or Al-Qaeda.  Of course, I didn't research the news on websites like I do today.  Also around October 2000 future Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was visiting the Temple Mount in Jersualem.  He stated that area would remain under Israeli control.  There was a wave of terrorist attacks from the Palestinians following Sharon's visit.  Sharon became prime minister of Israel on March 7, 2001.  India also experienced a deadly earthquake in 2001.  President Bush's inauguration took place on Saturday, January 20, 2001.  Following his inauguration, Bush started working on an education initiative which eventually resulted in the "No Child Left Behind" act which was passed by Congress and signed by Bush in January 2002.  Bush also was successful in persuading Congress to pass one of the largest tax cut measures since Ronald Reagan's tax cut measure in 1981.  The U.S. Senate was in Republican hands until June 2001 which then Republican Jim Jeffords (Vermont) bolted from the party when he was pushed to vote for the tax cuts bill which he opposed.  The Senate at that time was evenly split 50-50 with Vice-President Dick Cheney being the tie-breaker if needed.  The tradition was that if there's a 50-50 split in both parties in the Senate, then whichever party the vice president belongs to will determine which political party has the majority in the Senate.  The vice president serves as president of the senate for the purposes of a tie vote. 

President Bush was seeking to build a missile defense shield to protect the West, which then Russian president Vladimir Putin was strongly opposed to.  Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was making changes in the Defense Department.  John Ashcroft, who lost the Senate race in Missouri in 2000, was tapped as Attorney General by President Bush.  However, Ashcroft went through a testy battle to finally win confirmation by the Senate as the new attorney general.  Congressman Gary Condit (D-CA), was alleged to have had an affair with missing intern Chandra Levy.  Andrea Yates, a mother of five children in Houston, Texas who was married to NASA computer programmer Rusty Yates, had drowned all five of her children in a bathtub one day while he was at work.  She was eventually sent to prison.  The United States had sent a delegation to the "Conference on Racism" in Johannesburg, South Africa in late August or early September 2001.  The United States had pulled out of the delegation when the delegation wanted to brand Israel as being racist.  FBI director Louis Freeh resigned from his post during the spring of 2001.  Robert Mueller was confirmed as the new FBI chief on September 4, 2001.  In June of 2001 there was an article in the USA Today about the subject of worldwide terrorism which I didn't read.  I never recognized at that time America would experience an act of terrorism a few months later.

On Tuesday morning prior to 10:00 a.m. CST, I received news from someone at work that two jets hit the World Trade Towers in New York City and both eventually collapsed.  I also received word that the West wing of the Pentagon was hit by a jet and another jet crashed into a rural field in Shanksville, PA.  When I first heard about the terrorist attacks the first thoughts that came to mind were terrorism.  I thought the reason why 9/11 happened was due to the United States pulling out of the racism conference in South Africa.  I thought Muslims were retaliating against the U.S. for pulling out.  9/11 changed the world and the news stories from then onward focused on Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and terrorism.  Following the acts of September 11, the Patriot Act was passed to give the federal government sweeping powers to find terrorist suspects.  America sent troops along with NATO forces in Afghanistan in October 2001 and U.S. and NATO forces removed the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.  The world hasn't been the same since 9/11.