9-11

Just wanted to say thank you to all those friends and family that are here to make sure that our freedom is intact. I have a brother in the Army, a niece and her husband in the air force and a nephew in the air force. My best friend is a Federal Air Marshall. All of these people would give their lives for us if necessary. God I hope it never is!

On 9-11 I was getting ready for work....can't remember where I was supposed to go that day but someone called me and told me to turn on the TV. Wow......I will never forget the images of the first plane hitting the building....surely it was an accident....while I was watching another plane hit....OMG. How, why? Please tell me it wasn't my airline, please tell me it wasn't anyone I knew. What were those people thinking in those last moments? God only knows. God bless those souls.

I didn't know what to do, I couldn't get a hold of anyone so I headed out to the airport. As I got close there was an unnatural silence. No planes flying.....nothing. I was lucky, I went home but so many didn't.

A couple of years ago, I flew with my parents to Rome where they would catch a cruise. I watched them go and headed back to London to spend the night and the next morning back to Houston. I checked out the next morning and the hotel staff said that I should be prepared to check all of my liquid before boarding my flight. What? this was something new. I got into the main part of Gatwick and it was literally wall to wall people. What would normally take me 10 minute to walk took me over an hour. The plane was half full and it was an strange ride. The flight attendants were a little jittery and I was too. This was the day they caught the cell in England that was attempting to make bombs out of hydrogen peroxide and tang. At the time we didn't know what had happened but we knew that something obviously wasn't right. Thank you England! As irritating as it is for us to go through such a strict screening process every trip.....thank you England!!

I got home to a bunch of phone calls....where are you, are you ok? My parents had called from the ship and had no idea if I had even left Italy, London or gotten back to the states. I think it hit me then that that day could have been as bad as 9-11. Thank you God that it wasn't. God bless those fallen, their families and those who protect us everyday.