I went to Ground Zero a couple of years ago and looked out his name on the wall. I was really moved by it to be honest, more so than I thought I would be.
I didn't know Robert but we went to the same school. He'd be about 2-3 years older than me.
The reason why it was so shoking was becaue it was the first kind of thing that ever happend in America. It wasn't like us who were bombed to bits in the war, or bombed by the IRA.
The day that the US realised that terrorism didn't just affect other people. Not a nice way to find out though. I was duty SNCO in a Security Cell that day, and it was manic, didn't stop for about 3 days with false reports, etc. The Yanks were all over the shop with their end, they had no idea of how to react, initially they wanted to nuke everyone that they thought might be involved! Fair play to them though, they did finally understand what it was like to face what could have turned out to be an extended bombing campaign on their own soil, and they were not quite as keen to tell us about their Irish ancestry.