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Hi, my name is Melody Dabrowski,

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and I'm an Intelligence
Research Specialist.

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This is my story of 9/11.

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I'm a native New Yorker,
and at the time of 9/11,

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I was home in Greenpoint,
Brooklyn, on the waterfront.

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When the when
the towers were hit,

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my husband had called me
to let me know

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because he was on
the Brooklyn Bridge.

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He had witnessed
the plane hit.

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He immediately called me
to let me know

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because we all thought
it was an accident.

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He proceeded to come home,
but in the meantime,

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the other towers had collapsed

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because I lived
so close to Manhattan

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when the towers collapsed.

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The smoke came into my apartment
and it was horrible.

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It was horrible.
I was so fearful.

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I was fearful for my husband
that he wouldn't make it home.

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I was fearful
for all those people

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that were in the towers
that that that day.

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I couldn't believe
what was happening,

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and I don't think anybody could.
It it changed the way we lived.

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I kept looking up to the sky

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and thinking,
what's going to happen next

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is planes going to be
falling out of the sky?

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Is planes going
to be hitting us?

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It was horrible,
and it's something

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that I will never forget
as long as I live.

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And with the smoke
coming in and panic,

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we all thought it was
it was an accident.

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But when the second plane hit,
we knew it wasn't.

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And I was fortunate
that I still had television.

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I didn't have regular cable
television, so I had satellite

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and I was still able to see
what was going on on my TV.

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And I'll never forget that day
and wondering if I was safe.

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And it changed my life
because at that time

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I was, I had worked downtown.

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I used to do business
in the World Trade Center

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and I was home on sick leave

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and I was waiting
for my clearance

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to come through
for a federal job.

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I was going to be accepting
with legacy I.N.S..

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At that time, I was waiting
for my the clearance

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of the background
check to to finish.

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And because of 9/11, it didn't.
And I was waiting

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to get my my injury
on duty date.

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I had no idea when I'd be
starting my new job

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and I was in between jobs
at that point

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because of where I worked

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was was down
by the World Trade Center

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and nobody was allowed to go
down there after 9/11.

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And I didn't start
my new job with I.A.

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until November 2001,
early November.

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And I remember
going downtown to be sworn

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in at 26 Federal Plaza,

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and all I could smell
was the the decay.

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And it was something
I would never forget.

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And my my entire life
and my career really changed

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because I don't think
anybody knew

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that we'd ever be dealing
with something like that

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in spite of the fact that I was
working for deportation.

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We were then dealing with
the the terrorist aspect

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of the attack.

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I again, never, ever thought
that we would experience

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a terrorist attack
In our country.

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And to see the destruction

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and how it affected people
and me firsthand with the, like

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I said, the smoke
coming into the apartment.

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The government then had offering
of a special system

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to clear the air in our
apartments or in our homes.

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And I never I never accepted it,

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but they made
that available to us.

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But nevertheless, I will.

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I will never forget that day
and where I was

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and to see to witness
it firsthand

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and it feel it will feel
like it feels like yesterday,

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here we are 20 years later
and I can never forget it

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and I get chills
even speaking about it today.

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And I hope
we all become stronger

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and have learned our lesson
from that.

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And I will never forget,
and I hope this video

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Reminds people of what happened
that day and to never forget.

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Thank you.