We were in the middle of the rockies mountains, part of a heli-hiking vacation in the Canadian Rockies, when we got the news. The manager of the hiking lodge gathered everyone together, and I assumed that there was some problem with our departure. We had completed our stay and I could only assume, with a sinking feeling, that the helicopter had some problem which would delay our departure. I had never been so wrong.
“I’ve never had to do anything like this, but I’ve just received the following information: The United States is under attack. Two planes have crashed into the World Trade Center, and another has crashed into the Pentagon. At this time, North American airspace is closed to travel, and we are grounded. We’ll be trying to figure out ground transportation out of the lodge.”
At first, I thought it was a joke, and a bad one at that. My wife’s sisters both live in New York, one of them living not two buildings or so away from the World Trade Center. Several of her friends work at SIAC, which has several offices in the World Trade Center. All in all, not the greatest thing to say.
Some part of me refused to believe the news. It seemed all too convenient. After all, here we were in the middle of the wilderness without any real way to verify the claims. Was it a drill? Some kind of preparedness exercise?
To make matters worse, the majority of the people at the lodge were American. Nothing like an attack to make Americans talk of war. I could already see the wheels of major military campaign beginning to turn, and with it, a long year of pointless violence and political rhetoric.
Sigh.