911 Memories

September 11, 2001 was on a Tuesday, and I had called in to take an unscheduled vacation day from my job as a prison case manager at Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown, MD.
Very early that morning, I had awakened with a strong need to go serve in the Washington D.C. Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
Inside those sacred walls that morning, there was no hint of the outside chaos that soon began to unfold.
When I left the Temple, one of the groundskeepers approached me, and said, with a deathly pale expression, "We just have been bombed!"
Numbly, I nodded and continued on to my car in the parking lot, wondering what have caused his trauma and if he just was the victim of some scurrilous rumor.
To my chagrin and utter dismay, the truth of this tragedy soon began clear to me when I turned on my car radio.
I'll never forget the ongoing panic and mass hysteria that day in our nation's capitol.
It felt almost was as if I was in a third world banana republic, in the midst of a coup de'etat.
That day is forever burned in my memory.
I hope and pray that I never forget that awful day and the blessings of liberty that we all take so much for granted.