Where Were You?

Hi, Gang. If I sound a little subdued, I'm sure you'll understand soon. This will be an unusual piece for me. A very personal one.

It's not often that I go this way with my byline, here at PJ Media, but given the day it is, I hope you (and my much-abused editors) will understand. Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day, Veterans Day — I've done this. I wrote yesterday about Charlie Kirk. Today, it's a little different.

Today, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, marks the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. It's observed as Patriot Day and the National Day of Service and Remembrance. Flags fly at half-staff nationwide. At the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, family members will again read the names of the 2,977 people killed that day, with the ceremony beginning at 8:30 a.m. Seven moments of silence will be observed this year rather than the usual six — a new one has been added to honor those who've died in the years since from 9/11-related illness and injury. The Tribute in Light will once again rise over the New York skyline after dark, and the Memorial & Museum has opened a new exhibit for the anniversary, "Our Flag Was Still There," built around flags connected to Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and the aftermath.

Nationally, the 25th anniversary has also drawn a large service push: the nonprofit 9/11 Day is coordinating meal-packing events in more than 50 cities, with roughly 50,000 volunteers aiming to pack 20 million meals for Americans facing hunger — turning a day of grief into a day of doing something with it, which feels like the right instinct.

Given the seriousness of the day, I'm going to dispense with Today in History and the Birthdays. The usual treatment doesn't belong with this one, I think. The day is what it is, and I'll leave it at that.

I watched the tribute to the 9/11 victims, particularly the firefighters who died that day, from the convention in Dallas last night.

For those who saw it and wondered what the bell ringing was for, the 5-5-5-5 signal was used in the old bell alert system between the alarm central office and the individual fire stations. Remember, this system was used before they had radios to relay such info. Usually, it announced what box number had been pulled... say, box 4371, where the firefighters needed to go. I'm unsure if they still use it today, though it was still being used into the early '70s.

But the 5-5-5-5 signal was used to announce an in-service death. I doubt I need to tell you what I was feeling when I watched that last night, because I knew, thanks to reading Report from Engine Co. 82 by Dennis Smith.

I wish I could quote the passage where Smith describes the process — it's quite moving — but copyright, ya know. But I can relate what went through my mind as I watched last night.

9/11/01, 8:37 a.m. —

I'd come into work just like any other morning.

Where I was working at the time is closed now, and so is the department I was working for. Even the building is gone. People from the Genesee Valley will remember it as Midtown Plaza. But I can see the layout of the place in my mind, and I can even taste the coffee I was drinking that morning, from the Seattle's Best down on the second floor. (French Roast so strong you could stand a fork up in it.)

Oddly, I remember the conversation with the guy running the place, named Cole, about how glad I was that I didn't have to fly to get to work. You know the kind of meaningless nonsense people engage in to pass the time. Little did I know.

About half an hour later, I had grabbed two (then-new) HP 8150 printers — huge boxes — and was installing them in the fourth-floor printer room. In the previous few weeks, I had installed perhaps 20 of the things, so I made short work of the physical installation. (Never argue with someone who buys toner and printer paper by the skid).

Just as I finish, my cell phone rings... my boss.

"Eric," he says, "how you doing on those printers?"

"Just about physically installed," I told him, "though I'll have to tell the servers about them yet."

"Fine," he says. "That was fast… By the way, you may want to come up here to the meeting room; someone just flew a plane into the World Trade Center."

"Oh? OK… I'll be up in a few."

I went up to my office on the seventh floor, figuring some small private plane had made a course error or some such thing. I got up there in time to see the scope of the issue and was there only a few minutes when we noted a second plane hitting the second tower.

It was, of course, at that point that my vague understanding that this was no accident became a full-on conclusion that it most certainly wasn't.

After watching the events and the first tower fall, I remember calmly, and perhaps a bit numbly, going back to my desk and, more out of habit than anything, checking the internet connections to the outside world. Noting that my traffic indicators were screaming that internet traffic was peaking pretty wildly, I made appropriate notes to my supervisors, since the workflows would be affected.

The gates to the net on the West Coast, for example, were well into the red, and the gates to the net in NYC were apparently not responding at all. I couldn't even find switches I knew had been there a few hours before. I wasn't sure, but my gut told me it had to do with what was on the projection TV in the meeting room. Effectively, our internet capacity was halved, and what was left was being flooded with traffic from people inside the company all over the country trying to figure out what was going on, plus the usual business traffic.

My supervisors, of course, were too occupied with the news coming from the towers to read those messages until it didn't matter. As it turned out, our equipment for the NYC gates was directly under the towers. You can imagine why it failed. I never knew that until later.

Looking back, I suppose I was looking for some rational way to respond — some way to apply normalcy to all of what I'd just been a witness to. Of course, my response was more mechanical than rational. But you fall back on the mechanical, I guess, in situations like that. All you can do is continue plodding along while you sort things out.

One of the other things I did that day was become a blogger — an online writer.

By 2 p.m. that afternoon, though, what became BitsBlog had been fully registered at Blogspot, and I was writing. As it turned out, BitsBlog wasn't made public until the next day, due to an error on my part. But I didn't much mind. I was writing for me that day. An outlet for what I'd seen. What I was feeling. It's a cold fact that I became an activist for my own viewpoint that day.

I had been writing stuff for local and networked BBSes (the precursor to today's internet), but this was the big leap.

I've never looked back. Judging by how much Blogdom grew that week, I'd say I wasn't alone. As I discussed in an earlier column, I took my cue from Instapundit. I owe a debt to that site and to Glenn Reynolds in ways I can't even name. Eventually, that led to writing here at PJ Media.

But you know… it's the big occasions you recall with that kind of clarity.

And I do. I thought that sharing my own memories would help others remember.

Even though many in New York City have forgotten, I remember.

(Sigh) Yes, I remember.

Thought for the Day: Twenty-five years on, remembering isn't just looking backward — it's making sure the ones we lost still shape what we choose to do today.

Editor’s Note: New York City is now facing the consequences of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist takeover.

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