September 11th 2001

I was waking up, walking to a television production class at my school in Pennsylvania, right before I transferred to QU. I met my friend Cables outside, we chatted, walked into our TV studio and waited for our professor. He walked in, late and told us that there had been an accident at the World Trade Center.

We turned the TV sets on in the control room and watched the events of the day unfold. My thoughts turned to my friends who had fathers who worked in the towers. Being from Fairfield County Connecticut, many of my friends had fathers who worked on Wall Street and down at the WTC.

I sat there not knowing what was going on. I watched the second plane hit and felt a knot in my stomach. I didn’t know what to do. I left class and headed back to my room. I checked my friends away messages and all of the were pretty much the same thing… “Pray for New York”

My cell phone rang, it was my mother. She sounded worried. I was in Northeast Pennsylvania and she was very worried. I asked what was wrong and she asked me if I had talked to my father at all since the attacks. I said no. My heart sank. She said to expect a phone call soon.

I hung up not knowing what was going on. I started to put two and two together and a few minutes later my phone rang. It was my father.

He told me not to worry about him. I was confused.

“I am getting on a helicopter and flying to New York. I’ll be fine. Don’t panic I will be fine.”

I stayed silent. “I love you. I’ll talk to you soon”

I told him I loved him and he hung up.

My father is a firefighter at a Military Contractor in Connecticut and along with his chief found a pilot and got medical supplies to fly down to Lower Manhattan. He wanted to help. My father spent a week down at Ground Zero and around New York City helping fight fires around the city as guys in the FDNY worked at Ground Zero.

In November, my father was awarded a Medal of Honor from the Department of Defense in the rubble of the Twin Towers.

6 years ago, something horrible happened. It brought a country together, made regular people do extra ordinary things. Today we remember those who died in the attacks and the heroes who emerged from this tragedy.