Im a Detective in the NYPD and on that day was at our academy in midtown manhattan attending some training. We were listening to a secret service lecturer when he got a beep, looked down, then ran from the room. We were assuming something real bad had happened and found an office with a tv reporting the first hit. We went to the room where we could look south and see the carnage. Then we saw the second plane wobbling in. I could hear what i thought was the entire city scream as it hit and the fireball blew out towards us and i saw the pieces shoot across the city like a meteor and crash some blooks away. I heard one of our guys scream into the radio to call the pentagon, that we were under attack. I returned to my base, which was in harlem, loaded up my team and shot down to the site. The second building fell as we got there. We dug for our brothers in the emergency services unit who had evacuated some side buildings but were trapped in a canyon of buildings and were last seen pressed up against the walls when the collapse rained down on them. I remember men screaming that they had saved their lives and hugged eachother as they died. Then building 7 fell and we escaped it by the grace of god. We regrouped and searched for the next 7 days. We found no one alive. I recovered bodies at the site for those days and then body parts and finally bones for another 5 months at the staten island landfill.
I was proud to have been there and i'm so thankful that the country doesnt forget the sacrifices made by my brothers and sisters in nyc that day.
