Have courage for the great sor­rows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have labo­ri­ously accom­plished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Do you remem­ber where you were and what you were doing when you heard about the 9/11 attacks?  Tell me in the com­ments sec­tion below. Here’s my story …

Sep­tem­ber 11^th, 2001 started off as any other day — I woke up, show­ered, ate break­fast, and went to school.  I was in Sopho­more Eng­lish at Will Rogers High School and becom­ing bored quickly.  It didn’t take much to get dis­tracted in those days.  The school prin­ci­pal came over the inter­com and broke the news that there was a ter­ri­ble tragedy and Amer­ica appeared to be under attack.  The teacher tried to get the class­room TV to turn on, but elec­tron­ics being what they are, it wasn’t work­ing when we needed it most.

I lept out of my seat and briskly made my way to the front of the room, and offered to help.  After about 5 min­utes of fid­get­ing and rear­rang­ing cables, the TV whirred to life.  The news anchors were on, with a side-by-side image of the fires at the World Trade Cen­ter.  Then, as most of Amer­ica did, we all watched in shock as we wit­nessed the sec­ond plane hit.  Silence fell over the air­waves and in the class­room as we strug­gled to take in the real­ity of what happened.

As every­one became to regain com­po­sure, the news con­tin­ued, and nat­u­rally, con­cen­tra­tion was lost in the class­room and we could not com­plete the day’s assign­ments.  The bell rang, and TVs were turned off as stu­dents moved to their next classes.  The bell rang again, and teach­ers attempted to gain con­trol and begin their lessons again.  Some teach­ers had sons or daugh­ters who were in the mil­i­tary already, serv­ing over­seas and away from home.  Some stu­dents had par­ents serv­ing in places that no one could talk about, because the thought of grow­ing up with one of your par­ents so far from home was painful.

At the end of the day, stu­dents made their way to bikes, busses and cars and every­one made their way home.  Once home, TVs came on again and stu­dents who barely under­stood pol­i­tics and world issues began to get a real life les­son in how the world works.  Then Pres­i­dent George Bush addressed the nation.  I had no idea what he was say­ing, I just knew the world was in pain.  That’s when his words caught my atten­tion.  My ears perked up, it was Psalms 23.

“Though I walk through the val­ley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me…”

God Bless Amer­ica.  We will never forget.

Lis­ten to a Sep­tem­ber 11^th Trib­ute mon­tage that I made with Justin Loomis of 1170 KFAQ for the Pat Camp­bell show.

More about Sep­tem­ber 11^th, 2001 and it’s 10^th Anniversary

• Peo­ple Recall Sep­tem­ber 11^th, 2001
• On KJRH 2 Tulsa
• On KOTV 6 Tulsa
• On KTUL 8 Tulsa
• Tech Blog­ger Robert Scoble (Scobilizer)
• Tech Blog­ger Dave Winer
• National Sep­tem­ber 11^th Memo­r­ial and Museum
• Voices of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001
• New­seum
• Wash­ing­ton Post: Nine Lives, Ten Years Later
• Time Mag­a­zine: Por­traits of Resilience
• 9–11 Dig­i­tal Archive