My mother used to tell me, when I was younger, that she remembers the exact time, place she was at, and what she was doing when she heard that they'd shot Kennedy.
I remember as a kid being in awe of such a life affecting event.
I also remember what I was doing when the WTC was hit.
I had just got home from work. I was working night shift, then. I had turned the computer on to check my email, and I was making scrambled eggs in the kitchen when an IM popped up.
It was a friend of mine in Canada, telling me a plane had just hit the WTC.
Like many, I remember thinking 'How the hell do you hit a big building like that? You'd have to be stupid.'
Like many, I listened, in awe, as the talking heads bandied about the idea of terrorism. I tried to dismiss this to the back of my mind. This has to be an accident.
Then, as i'm watching, calling my mother to tell her to watch the news, another place enters the screen, and slams into the second building. And everything changed.
That was an attention grabber. That was shock and awe, folks. We now know, as Americans, what shock and awe feels like.
I seriously doubt anyone over there knows what shock and awe is. They know what a ground assault feels like, but they don't know shock and awe.
I have to agree with the statement made earlier. The American people can't stomach shock and awe. We can't stomach a proper response to this.
The perpetrators of 9/11 didn't find any sleeping giant. They found a comatose one.
I'll never forget where I was, or what I was doing. I'll never forget the many who died.