Native Texan, Male, married with 2 daughter (both adults)(both married) Up until Sept.11,2001 I considered myself a political agnostic. (couldn’t of cared less) That event opened my eyes and turned on something inside of me I’ve never experienced before.

Columbia disaster:

On the morning of the disaster, we were headed to a funeral of a relative. We stopped to fill the tank and the kids and Wife went into the store to grab some snacks.
I was looking toward the north when I saw several shiny objects going across the sky from generally west to east. Mentioned it to the family when they returned to the car and didn’t think too much about it after that. (the kids insisted on listening to music on the radio)

We arrived at the funeral site and I noticed several shuttle shaped balloons over the grave. (turns out the guy was a NASA buff)

Later, at the wake, my Wife’s Uncle came up to me and asked if I’d heard about Columbia. Suddenly it all became a lot more clear. I had seen Columbia’s re-entry.

There’s no way they could of survived and there’s few days in my life as weird as that one.