National September 11 Memorial & Museum

This was a very moving experience. For the second time in my lifetime (the first was the Kennedy assassination), an event occurred where I can always remember exactly what I was doing at the moment I heard about it. I was just out of the shower and getting ready for my 7am shift at Kaiser Hospital, Pediatrics in San Diego when they broke into the morning news to say that an airplane had struck one of the World Trade Towers. I watched as the second plane struck the second tower and I immediately woke Herb to tell him we were under attack.

The first picture shows what to me is the iconic picture. The quote from Virgil's Aeneid strikes me in the gut. The blue squares are each one a different shade of blue that represent how this most horrid of days started out beautifully, with the sky a marvelous shade of blue. There is one square for every victim. Behind the wall is the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of New York where they still labor to extract DNA and identify the few victims that have not yet been identified.

The panel that shows where the first plane hit the tower--when you look at the girder you can see the curve where the nose of the plane struck it. The last picture is called the "Last Column" It was the last column and it was found whole, still attached to the bedrock under the tower.Read more