Where were you

....5 years ago?

I was in Singapore. My wife and I were living there and had been for 9 months of a two contract job I was on.

It was just before 9 pm on September 11th, when my mobile phone rang. My wife and I were walking. She was about 4 months pregnant with our first child, a girl. On the phone was the managing partner at the law firm that I was working at. He asked if I had the number to the New York office.

I said, "Not on me, but why don't you use the tie lines?" We had just recently upgraded our phone systems so that all the offices were connect via VOIP (voice over IP).

"Where are you?" he asked.

I told him we were walking on Orchard Road. We were actually on our way back home at this point and were about 3-4 minutes from our flat.

It was then that he told me about the plane.

We immediately rushed home and turned on CNN. Like so many others we watched on TV as the second plane hit the south tower.

We continued to watch CNN and the BBC until 2 or 3 in the morning. Watching both towers crash upon themselves to the ground.


Complete shock!

How could this happen?

That was all I could think of.

I'm not ashamed to say that for several weeks after 9/11, my wife and I were from Canada. Vancouver, British Columbia. This was out of necessity not out of lack of pride in our country of birth. When taxi drivers are asking you how you feel about what happened in the states....you don't know what to say....what if you say the wrong thing? Sometimes you just do what you've gotta do to survive....that's how it felt.

Lately a lot has been made of 9/11 being forgotten....and are we safer now, 5 years later. Well, I will say, I don't see as many American flags as I used to see, but I don't think that what happened to our country on that day will ever be forgotten. We haven't forgotten Pearl Harbor have we? As far as being safer....yeah I think we're safer now.

With the help of our allies we're safer. If it weren't for Scotland Yard, would we have been given a 5 year anniversary gift? I think we would have.

Where were you 5 years ago? What do you remember?