I can remember where I was at approximately 7:55am eight years ago today. I had just gotten into my car to go to work and had turned my radio on to ESPN radio's "Mike and Mike in the Morning" show when I heard Mike Greenberg tell the audience that a plane had crashed into New York's World Trade Center. By the time I arrived at work the second plane had hit the Twin Towers. When I stepped out of the car around 8:30 I had entered a whole new world.
When I heard that the 9/11 attacks had been organized by Osama bin Laden, it was like one of my games had turned into reality. Back then I used to attend Origins and GenCon on a regular basis to play The National Security Decision Making Game. A game that puts players into real life political and military roles, the game reminds me more of the command post exercises I experienced in the Army than of a paper and pencil role playing game. And the central figure for one of those games a couple of years previously had been Osama bin Laden. In that game he was an irritating figure causing problems along the Afghan-Iranian border and the Iranians decided to take him out permanently. That wasn't so far fetched; the United Nations and United States prevented Iran from invading Afghanistan back in 1998.
I play MMOs in part to escape from the real world for an hour or two everyday. But today is one of those days where real life demands attention and remembrance. Each generation seems to have these events, whether it's Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination, and now 9/11. So where were you when you heard the news?
