Let's keep politics and conspiracies out if this. What's your 9/11 story?

On 9/11, I was in Idaho getting ready to do some work in a french fry plant. My wife called me on my new cell company phone. Back then, there weren't free data plans so if she was calling, it was important. After we spoke, I went to the hotel lobby where about a dozen people  or so clustered around the TV. I called the rooms of my two colleagues, woke them up and we eventually gathered in the bosses room and watched the towers fall.

When it became clear we weren't getting out of Boise anytime soon, we went to a local bar to eat and watch Bush's speech. The whole bar got quiet. No one said a word. When he was done, the bar started  a USA chant.

We eventually drove back to St Louis. Rental car companies realized people were stuck all over the country so they had to let them get back home so they relaxed restrictions on dropping cars off in other cities. We had an Enterprise car whose HQ is based in St Louis so the St Louis office "bought" the car from their Boise office and we drove the 25 hours back home. Got home Saturday aftetnoon.

We had a $500.00 check on a desk, to be sent to us.

Never saw it.

Living in So Cal, I awoke to the news just after the first plane hit.
I watched the second one fly into the building.

I remember thinking no way, having a hard time wrapping an understanding around it, what I was seeing, the raw footage.

I remember the narrative then being spoken of the USA is under attack, but by whom?

I cancelled work/calls, and stayed glued to the TV, watching the towers fall, etc.

Even today, I can't say those images, nor this event, shares the spot in my mind where it holds fast to facts, it just lacks the capacity to file it away in that department.
I guess its like having watched Irma, this past week, but still clueless as to what it was like for folks who had to live through this event, and will be struggling with it for a long time to come.

Personally, I try to stay away from those understandings, as focusing too much on upsetting things can cause out thoughts to deteriorate as well.
I am not saying forgetting those who need our help, no, that is still part of our lives, giving to those who need our help, I just don't try to wrap an understanding any deeper than that, I prolly can't anyway, without having been there, its sorta like choosing, me, myself, to become a victim of the event too, it holds no value, whatsoever, to these events, etc.

PS: I do distinctly remembering thinking that our way of life, prior to this event, was going to change.....
I inherently knew freedom took a major assault, upon its practice.
I believed a page was turned in history, and it would only further the elements that will destroy mankind on earth.
All that remains, is when?