I had flown an all-nighter into ORD the night before and had been asleep for an hour on the morning of 9/11/01 when my wife called me and told me to turn on the TV.

The hotel I was in is located on the airport, so later that day I decided to walk over to our flight operations to try and find out more. Security had not been set up beyond it's usual yet, so I just walked into the airport. It was a very erie sight to see the concourses of O'Hare airport with virtually nobody in them, so I took some pictures up and down the concourses, and remember thinking that I hoped I'd never see it like that again. I could see most of the airport from my hotel room, and it was also strange to see absolutely no airplanes landing, taking off, or taxiing.

My F/O on that trip was done when we'd landed that morning so he hopped a flight to PHX to go home. He did not make it home that day. I was at that airport hotel for the next four days, and did not see anyone I knew for that entire time. On 9/15, there were a few flights going, and I deadheaded home. The captain of that flight was one of my new-hire classmates, and he was the first person I recognized since the early morning of 9/11. As we were pushing back, a baggage cart driven by UA ramp service guys drove past the airplane, and I believe that's all they did that day...they held a large American flag as they drove around the ramp area. People cried openly as they saw that.

I was laying over most of the day yesterday at a hotel less than a hundred yards from Ground Zero, and I'd been near that same spot the day before 9/11/01. I paid my respects, in uniform, yesterday, as I do every day I'm flying a UA airplane. I've worn an American Flag tie in lieu of the regulation tie for a long, long time now, and I think it will look nice with our new uniforms eventually.

I was defiantly proud to get into the cockpit of a UA 757 yesterday afternoon and take my passengers into the skies that had been so off limits exactly 12 years earlier, and get yet another glimpse of the Freedom Tower as we banked away from the city for our destination.

FAB