Re: Part III

KEHamlin · Thu, 13 Sep 2001 06:41:50 -0700

I'm having really mixed-up emotions right now
about all of this. I'll tell you a little about my day,
and then explain why I feel the way I do.

I'll
skip ahead to the part where my building (two blocks
from the White House) was evacuated. I had driven my
dad's car to the Vienna Metro station that day; since
Vienna is the end of the line, I needed to find a way to
get to Virginia and preferably onto Metro once I got
there. The office was evacuated at 10:30, and there were
four of us heading to Virginia. It didn't take us long
to realize that driving would be impossible. So we
walked. Our plan was to go through Georgetown, over the
Key Bridge (we heard it was the only one open
anywhere near us), and to the Rosslyn Metro station. From
my office, this is a distance of two
miles.

It was the strangest walk of my life. Thousands of
people in business clothes were pouring out of the city,
and there were lots of people in cars trying to get
both in and out of DC. What really affected me was
when we got to the Key Bridge. It was a gorgeous day,
and I could very easily see the Pentagon and all the
smoke clouds rising out of it. I will never, ever
forget that image.

We finally got to Rosslyn, and
I got on the Metro. Incidentally, I had never seen
the platform so crowded, even on Fourths of July. The
train, however, wouldn't go all the way to Vienna; it
stopped several stops away. So I had to hitch a ride with
some other passengers. They took me to Vienna, and I
drove home from there. The total time from leaving the
office to walking in my house was three hours.

I
still feel very upset about what happened -- I mean,
who ever thinks that they'll have to evacuate their
city on foot? But the reason my emotions are mixed is
that it's pretty much established that the plane that
hit the Pentagon was supposed to hit the White House.
If it had hit the White House, there's a pretty good
chance that I would be dead right now, or at the least,
seriously injured or burned. So while I think everything is
horrible, and my heart goes out to all the victims and
their families, part of me can't help but be a little
glad that whatever it took, the White House didn't get
hit, and I'm therefore alive and uninjured right now.
Which boils down to part of me being glad that other
people died, since it appears to have been either that
or me possibly dying.

That, my friends, is
one of the worst feelings in the world. I've felt
pretty bad at times in my life, but this is so much
worse, in a different way.

Oh well. Just thought
I'd share. Sorry if I rambled.

Kristin Hamlin