Where were you?

I've been listening to some great speeches in American history on my Ipod and it got me to thinking about world events and where I was when I heard about different tragedies.

1) The space shuttle Challenger explodes (28 January 1986)

This is the first major event that I remember. It was when I saw the flag at half-staff and I asked questions that I found out that the space shuttle exploded. I was at school at Victory Christian and saw the flag during recess. That week we went to get a dog from Gerald Neighbors and we named him "Challenger" because we got him the week the Challenger exploded. Additional note: We also had a dog named "Dollar" because my brother bought him at an auction for a dollar. My brother was young, saw the dog and bid one dollar to buy the cute dog. The problem was, he didn't have a dollar to pay for the dog after he was the highest bid, so the guy standing next to him gave him a dollar to buy "Dollar".

2) Oklahoma City bombing (19 April 1995)

I was in university at the time and had an early morning chemistry class. 100.5, the KATT, a popular radio station had a popular morning show with the DJ's "Rick and Brad". After chemistry class I went to my pickup and started it up. The radio came on and Rick and Brad, who usually finished their shift during my class were still on air. It took me a minute to figure out what was happening because I thought it might be a comedy skit and I didn't know what the word 'triage' meant. Once I figured it out, I went home and watched the live coverage at my apartment. 168 people were killed in that bombing.

3) September 11, 2001

I got up early because I needed to go to Canada and took a shower. As I was shaving I turned on the radio my roommate BJ kept in the bathroom. There was no music, they were just on news and talking about the first tower collapsing. I immediately woke up BJ and we watched a couple of minutes on TV before I went to Canada. After I got to Canada they closed the border for awhile and I wound up spending much more time there than I expected.

4) Tsunami (26 December 2004)

I was at a friend's house checking my email when I felt the house shake. At first I thought I was getting dizzy but I had experienced an earthquake while living in Washington state, so I quickly realised it had been an earthquake. I went for my scuba dive training at a local pool and then started to go to my friend's house for a Christmas open house. Before I left, he smsed (texted) to say not to use the main road. The back road was congested but I was on motorbike so didn't have much trouble. After I arrived I found out there had been a tsunami and that was the reason the roads were closed. It had washed boats and other debris onto the roadway. As we talked, we heard a sound like a jet landing. We looked out from his balcony, which had an ocean view, and was a much smaller secondary wave coming in from the open ocean. It was months before the world realised over 200,000 people died that day. I still remember the Internet reports that evening were reporting 9,000 dead.

5) Space shuttle Columbia (1 February 2003)

I don't remember where I was when I heard about this but I remember I went for a swim and stopped at a roadside Malay restaurant the day after it happened. On the table was a newspaper with a picture of the explosion as the front page news. I had just arrived in Malaysia and knew almost zero Bahasa Malaysia. An elderly man in a Muslim skullcap and sarong came over and sat down. He spoke no English but he looked at the picture on the newspaper and wanted to say something. Eventually he said, "Sad" and walked away. I've always been touched by his desire to express sympathy that day.