It was a beautiful Tuesday morning in September. I was getting dressed for work and turned on the TV to watch the morning news. The first thing I heard was that they were covering a breaking news story and they were showing pictures of The Twin Towers in New York city. When I herd that a plane had crashed into one of the towers, I thought it was a just a crazy accident. Then they they showed the second plane hit the other tower, and I said out loud, “We’re under attack. We’re at war!”

The rest of the day we were all distracted at work. Most of the day was spent looking up news information about the attack on the Internet. That same morning, my boss was on an airplane to go pick up his son out of the country. I called his house and had to tell his daughter about the President’s order for all airplanes to land. His plane was forced to land in Midland, Texas. It was a while before we made contact with him. Because all planes were grounded and would not fly again for several days, they had to cancel their plans and drive a rental car home.

On Friday of that week, we received a letter in our office with a return address from the South Tower building , witch was now gone. It was an eerie feeling to be holding a letter that came from the site of the attack, and from someone who was likely there. We wondered who it was, and if we could find out if they were safe. His name was Sean Rooney from Aon Insurance, and his address was near the top of the building. We all felt sick about it. It made the tragedy of the attack even more personal. Every year since then on 9/11, I have looked him up on the web and read about his life, and how his wife played a large role in pushing for the 9/11 Commission reports. She also died a few years ago in a plane crash on her way to a memorial to honor her husband.