A/N: One of the Darker blogs from my Charlie days, dealing with one of the hardest times America and the world have faced. September 11th. Read and Review appreciated

It began a normal morning. I was away on police business in the Big Apple and had just got in from a conference, settling in my bed it was not long before I was fast asleep, it must have been hours before the sirens started, before the crying and the destruction hit.

September 11th 2001, the World Trade Center was hit by two kamikaze bombers, piloting two hijacked passenger planes, destroying the buildings and killing thousands within them, as well as all the passengers of the flights. Looking back, one would never have thought it could happen, not while I was there, not to a place so well known, so large…

I was awakened by the sounds of sirens, the phone ringing on the hook demanding my attention, wiping the sleep from my eyes I sat up and reached for the nightstand, I glanced to the clock, 9:00am on the dot. I was not due back at the conference till 3pm, whatever this was had to be important.

I answered wearily. Expecting something major but never something as large as this… Something so horrifyingly close to home, the frantic voice of one of my fellow police officers met my unprepared ears.

"Charlie! We need you down here at the World Trade Center, there's been an attack, there's panic all around, and they need all the help they can get." He sobbed into the phone loudly, I hardly heard as the phone slipped from my hand, an attack on a place so filled with people, surely there had to be a mistake…

It was no mistake. I arrived at the scene to find it burning with rubble, the dust coating everything as people ran crying, all around police tried to sort through the chaos but nothing could stop the pain of the sight before me. The two towers burning, the smoke seen for miles around, the smell of death and decay littering the air, I looked upon hell itself.

Tears began to form in my eyes, the smoke and the horror getting to me as I made my way towards one of my comrades, my eyes never leaving the building as one by one I saw not only smoke, fire and pain but people jumping from the windows, I watched as so many fell to their death, as so many burned. I begged the policeman beside me to tell me what had happened. I heard him mutter; "Two planes… they flew directly into the buildings, they… they caused this… The pentagon was attacked too… Nothing like this though…"

I felt myself gasp for air, inhaling smoke and dust and exhaling it in a fit of coughing. The man beside me moving quick, returning moments later with a mask for me to wear, I will never forget the words he uttered. "Put this on, we need help clearing the bodies and debris so the firemen can get in better…"

That day I saw so much horror that words cannot describe. The tears still streak down my weary features each time I think on the horrors I saw. How many people lost their loved ones that day? Their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives… All gone in a moment of hatred from people who could not fathom a free world… I still feel the smoke thick in my lungs; still see the images etched behind my eyelids. Each day I hear the sobbing, the bitter heartbreak of those who were unfortunate enough to be so near the disaster.

So many names etched on a memorial stone, nothing but dust and rubble left of thousands of lives, I look on these images often and wonder how humanity could be so heartless, so cruel. And I know that this is something that will never be answered.

On September 11th 2001 the Al-Qaeda group launched an attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon here in the United States of America, killing thousands in four plane crashes of passenger planes, each targeted at their own destination, filled with people. Two were flown into the World Trade Center towers, one was flown into the Pentagon, the fourth flight was thrown off course by brave souls who gave their life to over throw the hijacker and save their country more heartbreak. On this day, War began, and I, Charlie Swan, was there to see it start.