I was almost close enough to say I was there. Pipeline contractor was staged in the parking-lot of a ski-resort that happened to be in a high air-traffic corridor - prolly the landing pattern for NYC's airport. My dad and I were in the yard, doing our reports before heading out to the right-of-way. He looked up and said, "There's something wrong with that plane." "Hunh?" "It's not flying right - it's too low and wobbling. Well, at least they'll be on the ground soon..."
A few minutes later, we heard one of the lowboy drivers call over the company radio that a plane had just hit the WTC. "I bet that was the plane we saw..."
My son-in-law has already spent a tour in Kuwait, running convoys thru Iraq. One friend spent a year on the ground in Iraq repairing Blackhawks. Another friend is over there RFN calling in air-strikes in Afghanistan - talked to him yesterday. Son-in-law is scheduled to go BACK, to A'stan this time, in Feb for a year. My old unit spent a year over there early on. My bro-in-law spent a year in A'stan early, too.
I tell them our family sure is glad they are over there keeping the fanatics busy, otherwise *I* would be busy fighting them over *here* - and so would my kids...
...not that THAT would be a challenge...
