I Was There.

Most of us watched the terrorist attacks that took place on the 11^{ of September on TV. But 8-yaer-old Jackson McGonagle saw them in person. Jackson is in the third grade and lives in New York City. His school is Just a few blocks from the World Trade Center/ Here's what he recalls:

I was just about to go into school when I heard a noise. I thought it was a missile or something. I looked up and saw that one of the towers of the World Trade Center was on fire. My mom came to pick me up from school. That's when another plane crashed into the second tower. Now we got really scared. I thought, 'I want to go where my relatives have a house, far away in Pennsylvania.

We live in a high building near the World Trade Center. We were worried it would be hit by plane. So we went to my friend's house. She lives about two blocks from the twin towers. We all went into the basement to be safe.

One of the towers fell down outside. We opened the door of the basement to see what was going on, and a cloud of soot rushed toward us. We slammed the door, but dirt came in through the vents. We couldn't breathe. We got some cloths and soaked them with water so we could breathe better. But we had to get out of the basement. That's when the other tower fell down. We got outside and we run and run and run. Finally we were safe. Soot was all over us: on our shirts, in our hair and on our shoes.

I was worried about my dad. We were trying to call him but couldn't get through. Then we saw him walking down the street. I was really excited to see him. He was on his way to give blood at hospital.

My house is close to the World Trade Center. We couldn't go home until midnight that night. Our two dogs, Lucky and Roxy, were here. They were very happy to see us!

Around the 44 floor the firemen and policemen started coming up as we were heading down. They headed up to save people but met death instead... On the 3^r floor the lights went out and we heard this rumbling coming towards us from above. It was 10 a.m. now and that was Tower 2 collapsing next door. We didn't know that.

We headed down a dark corridor to an exit. We reached another stairwell and saw a police officer. She was wet through and covered in soot. She said that, we could not go that way, it was blocked. There was water everywhere. She stayed behind instructing people to do that. I don't know what happened to her...

When we went out into the courtyard, there was dust and soot everywhere, twisted steel and wires. I heard there were bodies and body parts as well, but I didn't look. It was bad enough. We moved out to the street. Several blocks away we stopped and looked up. Our building, exactly where our office is (was), was engulfed in flame and smoke. Someone said that Tower 2 had fallen down. I looked again and sure enough it was gone.

We sat down. A girl on bike offered us some water. Just as she took the cap off her bottle we heard a rumble. We looked up and our building, Tower 1, collapsed...

The responsible ones are in hiding somewhere on this planet and damn them for making me feel like this. But they should know that they failed in terrorizing us. We were calm. Those men and women that went up were heroes. They have known what was going on and they did their jobs. Ordinary people were heroes too. The very moment the first plane was hijacked, democracy won.

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