“09/11/2001”

My company sent me along with a contingent to Rotterdam for a UNCEFACT conference. It is/was the governing body for international Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) standards.
I had created an XML language, based on existing EDI standards.
We were in Rotterdam in order to lobby, to make my creation, Value Chain Markup Language (VCML), the international XML standard.
That would give my company a leg up on the competition, and make me fabulously wealthy.

I had been a traveling consultant for six years, I had large bank of Frequent Flyer Miles, so I decided to take my wife with me.
I already had a room, and a ‘per diem’ for food, therefore I only needed a ticket.

We flew to Amsterdam on Friday September 7th, arriving early Saturday. We took a train to Rotterdam, checked in to our hotel, and passed out. Sunday we walked around the city and then met the rest of our group for Dinner. Monday was full of meetings at the Rotterdam World Trade Center.
My wife did some touring on her own because I was occupied from 0900-1700.

Rotterdam is six hours ahead of EST.
I was in meetings all day Tuesday.
Since we had resumed after lunch at 13:00 local time (08:00 EST) I was arguing with and making fun of another gentleman.
For some reason he thought there was a need to embed video and pictures in ‘Purchase Orders’ and related documents…
The dumbass complained that the data wasn’t human readable…
The only time you read it, is if something goes wrong. It’s a machine language. Dumbass 🤨

As I was trying to patiently explain all of this to a room of 200 people. A man walks in and announced that an airplane had hit one of the World Trade Center buildings in NYC.
I’m thinking to myself, why was a dumb ass in a Cessna flying in the city?
The meeting droned on, I argued more, I’m good at it.
Sometime later another gentleman walks in and announces;
“An Airplane just hit the World Trade Center in New York City!”
I’m an incorrigible smart ass, so of course I had to answer;
“No shit, we heard that an hour ago…”
“NO! A second one!!”

Everything stopped…
I got up and just walked out.
The lobby of the Rotterdam World Trade Center had a large bank of cathode Ray tube TVs.
All were tuned to CNN.
As I was standing there they reported the attack on the Pentagon had just occurred.
There was video of the Washington Blvd side. Which was the location of the heliport and the 8th entrance.
In flames.
A solid concrete building…
In flames.
I had been a Police Officer there, and my wife had worked there since the Monday after she graduated from college in 1982.
We had friends there…
My wife’s office was on that side of the building…
She had co-workers there.

I immediately left the RWTC, and went back to our hotel. I needed to find my wife.
It was only a few blocks…
I have no recollection of it now.
It was like I was transported to our room, which was darkened.
She was napping, she had been out walking all day around Rotterdam.
I woke her and told her what was happening.
We turned on the room TV, and the only news channel we could find was BBC America.
We stayed glued to the TV.
It was announced that President Bush would address the Nation at 21:00 EST, 03:00 Rotterdam time.

After the Presidents speech, we discovered that we were hungry. We had already ate everything from the minibar. I called down to the desk and inquired if there was anywhere to get food at 03:30.
One place, a falafel shop.
In ‘little Palestine’…

So I walked the eight blocks or so to the falafel shop. When I walked in, there were two men behind the counter, and six sitting in the back of the small ‘dining area’.
I stood out like a sore thumb.
I was extremely large at the time, as I was in one of my ‘lifting’ periods. I was wearing a gray Harley-Davidson t-shirt, that had a large American Flag on the front, made using the words ‘Harley Davidson’.
It was noisy with conversation when I walked in.
It was quiet now.
I was the center of attention while I ordered our Falafel, and two Diet Cokes in the can. I watched the gentleman prepare the food.

When it was ready, I paid for the food and picked up two white plastic bags. One with styrofoam containers of food, one with the Diet Cokes. I headed out the door.

When I was less than a block from the shop, two young gentlemen also exited the shop. I immediately noticed them.
They appeared to be following me.
Rotterdam is in the standard ‘Grid’ pattern, to a degree. So I had several options to return to the hotel.
I crossed the street and turned a corner randomly in the general direction of the hotel.
So did they.
I turned another corner, went about 25 yards.
I set the bag of food down on the side walk, and turned around.
They rounded the corner, and I began ‘twisting’ the bag of Diet Cokes. I was making it a weapon. I could use it to bust at least on fellow ‘up side the head’.
I dropped my voice and said
“May I help you gentlemen?”
They both stopped.
We looked at each other for a few seconds, and they decided they needed to go in a different direction.
I made it back to the hotel without incident.

We were unsure when flights would resume. Luckily our original flight back the following Monday was one of the first international flights allowed.
Coming back from Europe, they fly north by Iceland, Greenland and Canada. Then down the east coast.
The airplane flew about 25 miles west of NYC. The pilot called out that we were passing the city, and you could see the columns of smoke from the still smoldering buildings.

“It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home…”