I can’t believe it has been five years since that day. I almost forgot about it, actually.

I was on a newsfast five years ago. I wasn’t watching the news or listening to NPR or anything. I had stayed away from the news for a few months. When I turned on the radio to listen to music, they were talking in guarded voices. The usually jovial DJs were serious. They didn’t want to spread rumors, but they had just heard that there had been a plane crash in New York. The plane had accidentally hit one of the World Trade Center buildings.

It didn’t take long for us to learn that it wasn’t an accident.

Even on my newsfast, I heard about 9-11 before the second plane hit. All those people who worry about not being informed if they don’t watch the news can rest easily. People always LOVE to talk about bad news.

I had been heading to a Coldwell Banker conference and meeting at the Little America hotel. All of us stood around the hotel lobby talking about the news. The hotel had set up a couple of televisions in unused conference rooms. Coldwell Banker made the mistake of going ahead with their silly little conference. The speaker made a reference to the event and how if we allow the terrorists to get in the way of our business, then they’ve won. I don’t remember one other word he said.

I snuck out of the conference. I was self-employed. They didn’t pay me to be there, but I still felt like I had to sneak out of the conference. I went to the unused conference room where there was a television. It was full of hotel employees and real estate agents. By then, both buildings had been hit. We watched the smoke coming from the buildings and listened while Orrin Hatch made accusations about Osma Bin Laden. I wasn’t so sure.

I assumed that these were home-grown terrorists.

My first instinct was to blame that neo-Nazi group in Idaho. Even now, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case and the whole Al Queda thing was just something the Bush administration made up so they could invade the Middle East.

It has been five years and I have gone from an intense sense of patriotism and outrage to an intense sense of self-loathing and outrage. We let the terrorists get in the way of our business, and no matter how many innocent Middle Eastern countries we bomb, the terrorists have won.

Because we have sunk to their level.