After arriving at work, Al and I drove across the street to K-Mart to try and get a glimpse of what was going on. While we were there, standing in front of a row of TV sets, along with 20 or so others, we watched the first tower crumble on live TV. I breathed the words, ‘Oh God’ as I felt my eyes get warm with water. Looking over at Al, I noticed a tear rolling down his cheek as well. We should have been on our third cup of coffee, arguing over the best solution to some silly software problem. Instead, there we stood in a K-Mart, watching TV with a host of strangers who had come there to also see.

I remember distinctly the first time I traveled to New York. I was lucky enough to be in a window seat on the left side of the plane and as we started to fly over and to the right of Manhattan, the sight of the Statue of Liberty and the forest of buildings behind it was an amazing sight. The Trade Center towered above the financial district of lower Manhattan. That was August, 2000. A few years later, on my last trip to New York, my hotel was only a few blocks from Ground Zero. Walking around the perimeter of what used to be a beacon of structural engineering and a major center of commerce, I was stricken by the giant hole that was all that remained.

While we most often focus on New York, let us never forget that the Pentagon was also a target that day, and lives were lost there as well. The number of lives lost and the stories of how it all happened are truly saddening.