Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

The first time I went to New York City was in 1979. My parents took us to all the famous landmarks on that trip. The three highlights of my trip were visiting the Empire State Building, riding the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and visiting the World Trade Center. I had brought along a 110 mm camera that I had won in a school raffle for the trip. Like thousands of other tourists I lay down at the foot of one of the Trade Towers, pointed my camera toward the sky, and snapped a picture of the enormous building rising above me. Of all the pictures I took with that little camera as a child, that was the one I loved the most. That pictures remains today buried amongst the thousands of photographs in my late parents’ family albums.

******

It was a Tuesday just like any other. I was getting myself ready for work - all set to stroll into work well after 9 a.m. Usually I turn on the television and watch CNN for a few minutes before getting in the car to head to work. On that morning I chose not to watch the news before heading out. As I got into my car, I recall thinking to myself that it was unusual to not hear any planes overhead at this time of morning. From my house just south of the runways at Dulles Airport, the morning air is usually filled with sounds of jets taking off or making their final approach for landing. This clear sunny morning, it was all quiet.

I turned onto Route 50 East and switched on my radio. I think I was tuned to CSPAN or WTOP. Oddly, instead of the usual news, it was Tom Brokow on the air. He was talking about an evacuation of the White House when my ears focused in. Then he was talking about the evacuation of Washington DC and the mass chaos on the bridges as people were fleeing on foot. I still did not know what was going on. Then Brokow mentioned that in New York two jets had crashed into the World Trade Center towers. Suddenly everything came into focus for me. I turned the car around and raced toward home.

I swerved into our driveway, burst into the house, ran upstairs to our bedroom. I screamed at my very confused wife to turn on CNN because "we are under attack" and mumbled something about war starting.

CNN brought images of fire and smoke. They replayed the video of the second plane disappearing into the second tower in a fireball. Later, what first appeared to be debris falling from the towers turned out to be mothers and fathers leaping to their deaths, some holding hands. We were watching the deaths of thousands live on television. Then came the collapse of these magnificent towers into dust and ash.

I picked up the phone and tried to call my friend and housemate from college. I knew he worked in the towers and would have been coming into work at the time. The phone lines were down - all circuits were busy.

I would not reach him until Friday. He was one of the lucky ones. He was under the towers getting off a PATH train when people started running into the station from the towers. The rumor was that there was a gunman in the towers. He hid briefly in the train and then made his way out to the street. He saw the North Tower on fire and ran toward Battery Park. The second plane flew over his head and struck the South Tower. He tells me that at that point he started running north and did not look back. When he reached West 4th Street, he felt the ground shake. He turned around to see the cloud and smoke of what was the collapse of the first tower.

I later found out that both of my college housemates were in the towers that day. My other friend was having breakfast in Morgan Stanley’s cafeteria on the 43rd floor of one of the towers. That trip to the cafeteria may have saved his life.

It was an ordinary morning for ordinary people going about their lives. The difference between life and death was random. 19 cowards decided to hijack 4 planes and use them as guided missiles against ordinary men, women and children. The thousands who died on that day were butchered because they were ordinary people who were defenseless against random acts of madness. Killing innocents is neither hard nor an act of martyrdom. It is an act of cowardice. It is an act of terrorism.

Terrorism on a massive scale was visited upon America on September 11, 2001. The land of freedom and liberty, of hope and prosperity, of ideas and ideals was under attack. The entire planet shuddered as those Towers fell.

******

From The Complete 9/11 Timeline:

(8:45-8:46 a.m.): Flight attendant Amy Sweeney is still on the phone with Michael Woodward, describing conditions on Flight 11. The plane is nearing New York City, but the coach section passengers are still quiet, apparently unaware a hijacking is in progress. Woodward asks Sweeney to look out of the window and see if she can tell where they are. She replies, “I see the water. I see the building. I see buildings.” She tells him the plane is flying very low. Then she takes a slow, deep breath and slowly, calmly says, “Oh my God!” Woodward hears a loud click, and then silence.

(8:58 a.m.): Brian Sweeney, a passenger on Flight 175, calls his wife, but can only leave a message. “We’ve been hijacked, and it doesn’t look too good.” Then he calls his mother and tells her what is happening onboard. She recalls him saying, “They might come back here. I might have to go. We are going to try to do something about this.” She also recalls him identifying the hijackers as Middle Eastern. Then he tells his mother he loves her and hangs up the phone. The mother turns on the television and soon sees Flight 175 crash into the WTC. The 9/11 Commission later concludes that the Flight 175 passengers planned to storm the cockpit but did not have time before the plane crashed.

(9:20 a.m.): A passenger on Flight 77, Barbara Olson, calls her husband, Theodore (Ted) Olson, who is Solicitor General at the Justice Department. Ted Olson is in his Justice Department office watching WTC news on television when his wife calls. A few days later, he says, “She told me that she had been herded to the back of the plane. She mentioned that they had used knives and box cutters to hijack the plane. She mentioned that the pilot had announced that the plane had been hijacked.”

(9:58 a.m.): Todd Beamer ends his long phone call with a Verizon phone company representative saying that they plan “to jump” the hijacker in the back of the plane who has the bomb. In the background, the phone operator already could hear an “awful commotion” of people shouting, and women screaming, “Oh my God,” and “God help us.” He lets go of the phone but leaves it connected. His famous last words are said to nearby passengers: “Are you ready guys? Let’s roll”.

******

Five years and one day ago, 2973 souls perished on September 11, 2001. 24 souls are still listed as missing.

• 2602 souls died in the World Trade Center. 24 remain listed as missing.
• 88 souls died on American Airlines flight 11.
• 59 souls died on United Airlines flight 175.
• 125 souls died in the Pentagon.
• 59 souls died on American Airlines flight 77.
• 40 souls died on United Airlines flight 93.

Rest in peace.

 [Cross posted at Taylor Marsh]