Osama Bin Laden and me (repost).

Any of you NWA alums remember September 11, 2001? Yeah, me too.

It was a Tuesday, it was sunny. I was working a morning shift (for Lori Link, if I remember correctly) from 730 to 1130. I was probably stumbling around, avoiding the phone, cursing the cafeteria for not being open, or cursing myself for not bringing more red bulls with me that morning. Then maybe I sat down at my pod and pretended to work while I read my Tarantino book. I wasn't the world's most dedicated reservation agent, if you hadn't guessed already.

After a few calls, the red memo flag went up above the supervisor's platform. They did this when there was important industry-related news (like a plane crash or severe weather) or to announce something equally horrible, mandatory overtime. Since beginning that job in 1999, I had had constant plane crash dreams, probably once or twice a month (and I was always on the ground, seeing them happen as opposed to being onboard the plane) and I had just gotten accustomed to *not* reading about crashes when they happened and *not* watching footage of them on television. So I did *not* read the memo that morning but instead kept working.

After a while, the calls started to slow down and then stopped altogether. Normally, this sort of thing was desirable, space in between calls, but before I could get my book out again, a manager started going around each of the pods telling us to read our memos. "A plane has crashed into one of the buildings of The World Trade Center in New York. No further details have been released yet." I read it and thought, what kind of fool is flying a plane low enough to crash into a building for God's sake? That was really my thought! Because the idea that someone would purposely do this was so outlandish and far-fetched that it didn't even occur to me at all. I probably went back to reading my book.

A few moments later, another agent came in from having been in the break room. She seemed a little . . . agitated. As I peeped my head over the divider to eavesdrop on her conversation I caught the words, "Bin Laden." Who I had heard of. I don't know how I inserted myself into the conversation, I only remember her response to it, which was: A plane hit the second tower. It's not an accident. Then I went into the bathroom to throw up. While I was in there, someone was crying inside one of the stalls; another person was literally on her knees next to the little cot in the quiet room; I couldn't throw up with an audience, so I left. When I got back onto the floor, the same person said that she heard another plane was heading for the White House. A few moments later I heard the FLIFO supervisor yell into her phone, "THEY HAVE ORDERED THAT WE BRING EVERY PLANE *DOWN.*" That's about as far as my flashbulb memory of the event goes, but believe me when I say I will never forget that series of events. The next three months were pretty much the most awful ones I'd ever live, despite the fact that I lost no one in the attacks, did not have a rescue or healthcare related job that involved helping and treating victims, or have anything else that physically or viscerally linked me to all the death and destruction as many, many others did. We got the job of rebooking stranded passengers, trying (unsuccessfully) to ease loved ones' concerns, yanking people off flights that were overbooked after all US carriers had to basically axe their empty loads---we relived Osama's little stunt multiple times each day. It was an uncertain, stressful time. Every night for three months I fell asleep to the recycled symphony in my head of everyone who had screamed at me that day, then I got up the next day and did it all over again. We all did.

Now it may have been a bit naive of me to make assumptions about the job I had taken, but I took the job at NWA basically to get flight benefits, pay off my debt, and color flags and maps while I half-assed my way through selling people flights. Never in my life did I expect to be in a situation like this, and clearly I wasn't the only one. Everyone was unsettled. And I'm not trying to be dramatic in focusing only on how the terrorist attacks affected my personal emotional health; I know there was far worse pain than mine, but I'm saying that this event messed with everyone, and that it was meant to.

What kind of person could mastermind something like this? He wanted us to be afraid. He wanted us to burn and fall and panic. He wanted this country in ruins, and convinced *many* others to want the same thing. Someone asked me the following summer (2002) if Matt and I were going to have kids, ever, and I said that we wanted to, but we didn't have any money and the world was too awful to bring children into then. She said, "Maybe, but you should do what you want to do, otherwise you're just letting him win."

That floored me! And it was true. I was afraid to fly after the attacks, and for a while I said I couldn't ever do it again, but it passed. We flew to Newark to visit friends that spring and if I thought the flags in everyone's yards and windows were striking in Minneapolis, they were downright amazing everywhere we went in New Jersey and New York. I couldn't really appreciate this ability we have, as a nation, to unite and support each other because of the unpleasantness of the job I was doing, but once I saw it, it gave me comfort, just like it gives me comfort when I see it today. It's something, that American flag, and people everywhere know it. I don't like everything that happens here, I have a really hard time with how bad things are in the news, and God knows, there are problems in this country, horrible ones. But I still believe in us, that maybe someday we can just be, you know? There is good out there, we all know there is.

So when it comes down to whether or not I'm rejoicing the death of a terrorist, I'm not celebrating; I don't want to see dead pictures of him just like I never wanted to tour the location of his handiwork. He's gone. Now instead, why don't we all just go out there and focus on proving the son of a bitch wrong?