At 8:30am on September 11, 2001 I was on a treadmill in a gym aboard a Marine Corps Base in North Carolina. Having just dropped off my son at preschool, this was a normal routine for me. As it also was for the familiar faces around me. We were spaced out, each person trying to carve out a little space of their own in this very public area. Headphones on listening to music, four different televisions playing four different shows, each of us lost to our personal thoughts. We knew one another only from our routines and aside from an occasional "good morning" or "are you waiting for this" we smiled cordially to one another but nothing more.

I noticed television news showing images of a burning building in New York City. I wasn't going to alter my routine to get a better look at the television set. I don't really know anyone in New York, besides my loved ones were all accounted for. Something about a plane I hear. I remember thinking, "oh how tragic, inexperienced pilot, I'm sure". I hear a few people commenting aloud around me, but no one really alters what they're doing and they're certainly not talking to one another, merely commenting individually. A collective gasp draws my attention as the second plane struck. The handful of strangers who have been wrapped up in their own worlds and routines slowly begin to move. Transfixed to the images before us; two massive buildings obviously under attack and we begin to draw together. Exercise routines are adjusted so that we're sitting closer to one another; headphones are off as the volume is increased on the televisions which now display only one image. I sat in a roomful of strangers whom I've met here routinely and found myself talking to them for the first time; each of us sharing raw emotions with a stranger.

When the Pentagon was struck, you could feel the disbelief in the room as if it had a physical presence all its own. Sitting aboard a United States military base, in a sleepy little southern town it immediately dawned on me that the very spot I was sitting could be a potential target. My husband in his office, a target. My son in his preschool class, a target. My family in Virginia, targets.

After quickly grabbing my son from his preschool, and beating a speeding military policeman to the entrance gate, I sped all the way home to find my answering machine full of messages. The base was now completely closed to all traffic, no one on or off. The phone and computer lines allowing me to speak to

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