Ten years ago today I lived in Baltimore. It was a Tuesday. I was at my desk at work on something or other having to do with the wonders of space when I heard about the “accident” in Manhattan. That’s how we thought of the first jet crash into the World Trade Center. An accident. We watched mostly with curiosity — how could this happen on such a perfect day? — when the second plane hit the pristine tower. The second crash clarified reality: We were under attack. The third and fourth crashes happened to strike to my north and south, in Shanksville and Washington DC. That day of death and rage, heroism and loss will burn in my memory for as long as I live.
At that moment we saw our enemy clearly. At that moment we knew there would be war. At that moment we knew the world had changed.
We did not know that ten years later, the towers would remain unrebuilt. We did not know just how quickly the moment of clarity would dissolve into a haze of “understanding.”
We’re still standing; Osama bin Laden is dead; al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. But the Arab Spring is moving toward an Islamic winter, and our leaders still do not seem to understand the true nature of the threats arrayed against us.
Some of us, but not enough of us, learned the meanings of some words beginning on 9-11-01. Imam. Jihad. Dhimmi. Taqiyya.
But too many either never learned or have by now forgotten.
And life goes on.
I was working nights in Spokane, WA. When I got up early that afternoon, I turned on Fox News (as was my habit), and immediately saw what was happening.
Later I asked my friends and family why they didn’t wake me up to tell me what was going on.
Work that night was… surreal.
5 o something in the morning on the West Coast. My son called to say those words a lot of people heard that day. “Turn on the TV” After the second plane hit we surfed around a little and I did what Americans generally do every day. Got up and went to work.
My wife and I were in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela docked at the rather grungy marina. Jeanie, who speaks Spanish quite well, had gone with some newly-arrived friends to help them clear into the country. They had finished at the port captain’s office and were heading to immigration when the port captain came running after them and told them, quite excitedly, to come back to his office. CNN was on his television and they saw either the first or second aircraft hit the WTC. Jeanie called me on the radio and suggested that I tune in CNN on our television. I did and got the English language audio on our short wave radio.
For the next couple of days, whenever we were walking around town, people who normally came up to us and told us to be careful of the thieves, told us instead how very sorry they were about the 911 attack.
I was sitting in my office in headquarters building of XVIII Airborne Corps at Ft Bragg in North Carolina, and had radio on. After second plane hit, I went upstairs to the planning room. Things were about to get busy in a very serious way.
stephen b — I want you to read what my son wrote; he’s now an army sgt. in sat/comm, stationed out of Ft. Bragg, attached to airborne, but now in Iraq (he’s already done his time in the sandbox called Afghanistan):
“10 years ago, our world was shattered. Every aspect of life was torn. Both sides had suicidal pilots, except ours would have been saving lives, not destroying them. The ensuing “wars” have done nothing but double the number of lost and injured countless others. I still remember sitting in my underwear eating Lucky Charms before school watching the Today Show like I always did. I could have sworn it was a movie trailer. I’m still not convinced it wasn’t. What a waste of human lives.”
However, this post came via FB from *Iraq*. He’s trying to do his part.
I was in training to be a police dispatcher in Enumclaw, WA. When the first plane hit, those of us in the police station were in shock, when the 2nd plane hit, we started getting phone calls from concerned citizens, wondering if there was any truth to the rumors that places in WA were targetted. We also handled the walk-ins to the police station and people were walking in asking questions and asking how they could help those in New York. At that time we didn’t know much, but the Chief decided to find out, and the town came together. In Enumclaw, dispatchers handle both police and fire, so it can get busy, and busy it was, but it a good way. People called in wanting to show support for those in New York, and wanting to help.
My 8 hour shift was far longer than that, even on the West Coast. We worked probably an extra 8 hours over the next week, handling all the donations and such that people wanted to send to New York and answering all the questions and keeping the peace here.
I was repairing a rooftop HVAC unit on the Trinity III building of the Trinity Office Park Center in Centreville, VA.
My co-worker and I had completed the job, and as we came down off the roof, saw the receptionists in the various office suites crying.
We didn’t think anything of it until we got to our vans and turned on our radios.
As it turns out, since Dulles was taking off to the south that day, it was very likely that AA 77 had flown right over us during her climb-out.
We called in to the shop, and told them that we would be staying off the cell system, since the channels were badly needed by Emergency Services, and seeing as how the likelihood of anyone allowing us to park our service vans next to their buildings for the foreseeable, it looked like the work-day would be over.
I went home and hunkered down and then wondered as the silence under the Dulles approach path grew and grew.
At that company, we had only one service tech who was a Muslim, a Pakistani we called “Kal”. It was his lot to have been assigned to the Pentagon Row condos jobsite, right across I-395 from the Pentagon. The Almighty has a Divine sense of irony sometimes.
He contacted me the afternoon of the attacks, asking me what we were going to do.
I replied that I would probably be going back to sea, and that if I were he, I would be calling the FBI and offering my language skills, (before the FBI called ME).
About 30% of the workforce was laid-off the following Friday,(the fallout of the “Dot-bomb”, and its effect on construction).
I don’t know what became of Kal, but by early December I was on a ship full of military stores at anchor in the lagoon at Diego Garcia watching very large airplanes take off to do very good things to very bad people in Afghanistan.
I’ve been sailing ever since. After 15 years before the mast, I tried getting away, but the sea called me back.
It suited me then and it does so now. As I sat on the deck and watched the tanker aircraft and then the bombers take off on their sorties, I realized that I was very lucky to be able to further the mission of striking back at those who had struck us.
I don’t think I would have been able to go and worry about someone’s broken air-conditioner with that sort of work to be done, y’know?
I worked at Park Ave. & 23rd St. on 9/11. I rode in from Staten Island on the ferry and remember what a clear day it was, looking at
the WTC for the last time as it turns out. Rode the subway underneath the WTC maybe 25 min. before the attack. NEVER have I seen a
more surreal scene then out on the street about 2 hrs. after. Everyone just walking around in a daze. Some people crying, some just
sitting on the stoops with their head in their hands. Walking home across the Williamsburg Bridge, there was a Hasidic Jewish guy handing
out water to anyone who crossed the bridge. Wow. I’ll never forget.
The clear blue sky of that morning is still the first thing I recall. I was living in Michigan and on my way to work. I didn’t have the radio on in my car, just had the windows down and enjoying the glorious morning. After I got to work an hour later, I went to my office but didn’t turn on my computer. Everyone was in meetings or teaching classes, so I was alone for quite a while. Finally I saw a co-worker and greeted her effusively with, “Isn’t it a gorgeous morning?” She looked at me like I was insane, then told me what happened.
Like a lot of people, I wish I could go back to that morning, before I learned the horrible reality.
I was sitting at my computer, the kids off to school, my husband off to visit a friend’s shop. The TV news was on for “noise” in the empty house.
First thought was of the “air raid” drills we’d had in grammar school. That for which we’d “prepared” had happened…the “paranoid” fifties didn’t seem such an ignorant time.
Sorry for all the “”.
But my first reaction was “So it’s happened.” People around my age were kind of ready to respond, expecting that we could meet and overcome the emergency.
If the attacks happened today, would people rally as they did 10 years ago? Would Mayor Bloomberg go down himself to speak with the emergency workers? Would the President be blaming the attack on Republicans?