To commemorate the 15th anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to share with you something I wrote on the morning of September 12, 2001, after having been up for about 24 hours, watching the news. It is so hard to believe that it has been 15 years since the morning we were awaken early by my grandmother who called us to make sure my dad was not flying out of New York the morning she saw reports of an airplane accidentally flying into one of the Twin Towers. Luckily my dad had actually flown out of New York for Mexico City and then on to Honduras the morning before.
To give you a little background, at the time, I was still living at home with my parents, saving up to purchase a home and had just started a new business. My mom was working part-time at a local restaurant supply company and my brother was in high school. My dad was making his living working for a hanger company and spent almost 50% of his time away from home, a good portion of it in New York and New Jersey, but also in places all over the globe.
My mother and my brother traveled to New York and New Jersey quite frequently with my dad, tagging along on business trips so they could spend time with him. Being in my mid-20’s, I preferred to stay home. Over the course of his years of working in and around “The City”, my dad was fortunate enough to meet a lot of great people. In early September, my father, brother, and mother made a trip to New York together. They came back with the usual stories of good times and travel nightmares, telling me of their friends and friends of friends that they would love for me to someday meet. On this particular trip, my family had dinner with Joe Allen, a close family friend of my dad’s good friend Joey who was also engaged to one of Joey’s cousins. Upon their return my parents commented on how much Joe, Joey and I had in common, Joe and I because he worked in finance and Joey and I because he loved cars, and in particular, a certain German flavor.
What follows is a good chunk of something I wrote the morning after 9/11. Today, I believe I wrote this as a release of the strong emotions I was feeling at the time, though when I wrote it, I figured it was more to document the event as a moment in time. I share it with you in the hopes that we will remember that morning and continue to share everything that was wrong, but also what as very right and admirable about the actions of some of America’s bravest souls on the morning of September 11, 2001.
Please be forgiving of how little we knew of what actually transpired that day in the short 24 hours after the attack occurred. It’s almost a little embarrassing now, but I also feel it is important to remember the chaos, the lack of understanding, as well as the danger so many of us felt that morning. I truly hope we will never experience anything like this again:
My grandmother has always been an early riser. For as long as I can remember, she woke early, got my grandfather on his way to work, then turned on the news or an exercise program until it was time for her to start her day. I hadn’t been asleep for more than a few hours, when the knock on the door woke me. I opened it to find no one there, but then heard my mother calling from the kitchen. I wonder how long I’ll remember it this vividly. When I walked towards the kitchen, she said, “Grandma just called. A plane hit one of the towers.” Though we don’t live in New York, there’s enough time spent over there that it could have only meant the World Trade Center.
My grandmother’s reaction was the same as mine and that was why she had called. My first thought was of my dad and where he was in the world that morning. My grandmother called to make sure he wasn’t in New York, but luckily, he had flown out of New York City for Mexico City, then on to Honduras the morning of the 10th...When my mom first told me, I figured it was a small private plane or something of the sorts that had been in an accident, but once I saw the damage that strike had made, I knew there was no way that was a small plane. That in itself gave me some relief since all of my friends who are pilots still fly nothing larger than a private corporate jet.
Once I knew my dad and my friends were safe, it began to really sink in what had happened. A plane had hit one of the towers...I moved to our living room, turned on the big TV and watched, waiting to hear how an accident like this could have happened. As I sat there in the first few minutes, my mom came in and asked me if I remembered them talking about Joe Allen. I told her that I did and she then told me that he works in one of the towers, but she wasn’t sure which one. I commented that it looked like the plane had hit pretty high and I was sure that people were able to get down out of the building, despite the strike. Maybe Joe didn’t work in that tower. Maybe he hadn’t gotten to work yet this morning.
As soon as we finished our conversation, I remembered that when I got home from high school on the day the Gulf War began, I recorded the news footage so that I could one day show my little brother who was five at the time, the coverage of the Gulf War. This time, I didn’t think about the VCR, but instead hurried down the hall to wake my brother up so he could see such a newsworthy event as an accident of this magnitude. Vinny was slow waking up, but finally made his way to the living room where we watched the news coverage for what seemed some time. We took in the speculation from the newscasters, making a few speculations ourselves. It was then, for the first time that we began to wonder. An inexperienced pilot in a small plane ending up in a once-in-a-lifetime accident of this magnitude was one thing, but a commercial pilot, even a small commercial plane pilot, hitting that building on accident on a clear morning began to seem nearly impossible.
Speculation ran wild from the newscasters and they tried to report every little detail that they could get their hands on. I don’t remember what a lot of it was, looking back, but I do remember one thing. There were two reports. One from someone watching radar via the internet, and another from a person on the ground that there was a plane heading north almost literally up the Hudson River, right that second, as we were watching. I remember the thought crossing my mind how odd that seemed, but of course, it had to be regular traffic and people were just noticing it today because of the accident.
The next thing I remember was when my mom called out from the kitchen, “Oh my God, did you see that?!” At first we thought it was an explosion, maybe the fuel in the crashed plane igniting finally from the heat, but as the newscast instant replay would show, that was the second plane hitting the other tower. Though we had speculated it, this was when it hit home. We were under attack. It wasn’t an army marching up the beach, or paratroopers launched from off-shore. They weren’t blazing across the border like we were used to. My Lord, they were actually flying planes into buildings. I thought of the old plane lots in the desert out here, and even the used jumbo jet dealership in Las Vegas at the airport. Though it truly did not matter to the people who I knew had just lost their lives in that tower, I hoped that those were stolen planes and not hijacked ones. Vinny and I talked on it as we watched the replay over and over. Together we hoped that the buildings were mostly empty. That people had slept in because it was Tuesday and not Monday, that they didn’t need to get an early start on their work. Sadly, though, we knew, it was the finance district, the World Trade Center, and it was more than likely that so many people were already working when those planes hit the towers. I thought of my old job that I started each morning at 7:30. I would have been sitting at my desk. We didn’t want to believe it, but they were sitting at their desks. It was then that I called my girlfriend, Teresa. She had been at the gym early in the morning and had seen the newscast, but without sound, was unsure of what was going on. I found myself in disbelief in telling her that we were under attack. I told her to make sure she stayed out of populated areas and to stay close to home in case I needed to come get her. It was then that I began to call all of people I could think of that I knew that would probably not have put a TV or a radio on this early in the morning to tell them the same.
By now, my mom had spoken to my dad. He was on a plane from Honduras, heading back to Mexico City when the first plane hit, but we breathed another sigh of relief as he was now safe on the ground, and being in Mexico, we figured, even safer than us. My dad was calling New York to check on everyone and my mom was calling him to learn of the news. While this was going on, Vinny and I had slowed our conversation a bit. There wasn’t really much else to say at this point. The images of the towers in flame were intense, and we hoped that the worst was over. It was then that we learned that there were planes unaccounted for and that all traffic was being told to land. I remember the sheer fright of learning that though most of them were confirmed as OK, the FAA was reporting nearly a thousand planes in the air. How many of them were there? What’s around us? Is there anything here in Huntington Beach that would be worth hitting? We immediately came up with contingency plans. Where we would go and what we would do. We figured if the nuclear plant at San Onofre were hit, we’d have enough time to get in the car and drive north before the radiation reached us. Though we griped and moaned when they closed the Air Base at El Toro and the Navy Yard in Long Beach, I think at that moment, I was secretly glad that they were not operating anymore because they were two less targets. I was reminded at that time of the fear I had as a little kid, of course, only when I thought of it, that my grandmother’s house where I spent so much time was only a couple miles from the Naval Weapons Station in Huntington Harbor that of course buzz had labeled as a primary target during the cold war that was on at the time.
As we were contemplating this all, I’ll never forget how unbelievable it was to hear the street-cleaner going by outside. It was Tuesday morning as always, but I could not fathom that here we sat watching God-knows how many people die, watching in my lifetime, this nation come under attack on its own soil, all the while thinking, when was the last time…1812?...Did the battles of the civil war count?...Hawaii wasn’t a state in 1941, so they don’t count that, do they?...What in the hell does this count as? For some reason, while all of this is going through my head, I come to realize that my mom’s car is still in front of the house. Looking back, it seems so very weird that while watching this horror unfold, thinking of all of the possibilities of what could be next, that my instinct at the time was to run outside and move the car before we got a measly parking ticket.
So, my mom beats me out the door. While I pondered how amazing it was that we both still prioritized moving the car before getting a ticket above all else at the time, my mom ran to the car and started it. It was then that I noticed a good deal of our neighbors were also standing outside, literally in disbelief as well at what was going on. Between the guy in the street cleaner and the three parking control officers that followed him in their trucks, had they gotten to work so early that morning that they did not know? Had they not had a radio station tuned in, or even been told by dispatch what was going on? I do not know if they gave out tickets that morning because it appeared that everyone on my block had gotten out there the same time that we did and moved their cars. Either way, I made it a point before going back in to the house to yell at each passing parking control officer, “Don’t you know that the country is under attack?! And you are out here writing people tickets for not moving their cars?!” By the dumfounded look I got, I truly believe they had no clue what was going on.
Once back in the house, I settled on the floor in front of the TV, my nerves still shuddering from all that was going on this morning. As my mom walked down the hall to her room, calling my dad, Vinny and I took a close look at the towers. Vinny then told me that he remembered Joe saying that he worked on the 107th floor. As we studied the scene before us, it became apparent. No matter which tower Joe had worked in, if he had been in the office when either of the planes hit either of the buildings, he would be above the collision point. We still hoped, though we knew, watching helplessly, there were so many people in those buildings that were not going to find a way down through the fires. We threw out scenarios…Maybe the fire crews could eventually get up there with water and put the fires out. There had to have been places in the buildings that were not engulfed in flames. Places where people could have crouched, maybe near a broken window so they could breathe. Maybe they could bring in water-dropping planes and helicopters. Maybe if they got the fires under control, they could land helicopters on the roof and start pulling people off.
That was when it happened. We were talking out scenarios, studying as detailed as we could the image of the burning buildings on the screen. The camera angle that was being shown just showed the top portion of the buildings. It literally looked as if the top of one of the buildings had vanished. I said to Vinny, “Is it gone?” Vinny and I both looked at the screen as closely as we could. There was a lot of smoke there, but it really looked like it had vanished. After we had spent about thirty seconds going back and forth, the newscaster noticed the same thing. He asked that they run the tape back because it looked like something else had happened. Sure enough, when they showed the playback in slow motion from the same angle, you could see the top of the building fall down and off the bottom of the screen. As soon as we made the realization, Vinny went running to the back of the house to tell my mom to come and see. By now, they had a few different angles that were confirming that it looked like the entire building, not just the top portion, had fallen.
I honestly do not remember when I first saw the Pentagon. I do not recall if it was before or after the first tower collapsed...To the best of recollection, it was after the first tower fell that the newscasters broke into their own commentary of the towers to report that they were receiving word of a large, billowing smoke cloud in Washington, D.C. Again, we hoped for the best. We hoped that it was a brush fire, or maybe an accidental building fire, or something, but as you know, we were proven wrong again. A few minutes later, the newscasters were reporting that it was the Pentagon. There wasn’t a close enough image to show the damage to the Pentagon yet, just a long-shot from somewhere in the city of the smoke cloud. We then figured the worst…that like the tower, the entire building was gone.
So, this was it. At this point, we figured it was an all-out attack. The FAA was reporting that there were still some one hundred planes in the air, some of which were still not confirmed as in the hands of their pilots. The FAA was grounding everything they could land and not letting anything else take off, but there were still one-hundred flying bombs in the air, each loaded with passengers. Then, there were the international flights. If they had gotten passenger planes here in the U.S., which still hadn’t been confirmed yet, then why wouldn’t it be conceivable that there were planes from Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan?
If I recall correctly, it was about the same time the newscasters were reporting a small plane crash in Pennsylvania that they announced they were getting word that American Airlines had confirmed that two of their flights were missing. It wasn’t set in stone, but we knew it. As soon as that report came in, it was enough for us to know that there were at least four planes…the two in New York, the one in Washington and the one in Pennsylvania. If they had gotten two passenger jets, then they had gotten four, and if they had gotten four, Lord knows how many of them they had.
It seemed that about every few minutes, the newscasters were reporting how many planes were still left in the air. They had concluded the same. We knew of four, but how many of them were there? It was then that I noticed that my mom had walked back to her room and had been in there for some time. Vinny and I had been trying to keep her informed while she was getting ready for work, but had not seen her for a while. When I called back to her, she emerged from her room, on the phone, holding her hand up to quiet me. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how she told me, and I definitely know that I will never forget the incident itself. My mom just said, “Oh my God,” over and over again into the phone as she started to tear up. We knew at that minute that it was news about Joe.
My mom got off the phone and walked down the hall to tell us. She said that Joey had just gotten a call from the place where Joe Allens’s fiancée worked, asking him to come and be with her because she was, as they said, hysterical with grief. Joe had, in fact, been at work when the plane hit his building. He had tried to get out, but when he realized that he was not going to be able to get down, he took out his cell phone and called his fiancée to tell her good-bye. He told her that he loved her, asked her to please tell his family that he loved them, that he didn’t think he was going to make it, and then, the phone went dead. As far as we know, that was the last that anyone heard from Joe. I don’t recall exactly at what point I called my girlfriend Teresa to tell her what I learned of Joe and his fiancée, but I do definitely recall that I was so choked up that I could barely tell her. Just the thought of what it was like for Joe, the thought of what it would have been like to get that last phone call from him.
With Joe’s fate still fresh in our minds, we watched in inevitable disbelief, yet at the same time, with frightening expectation, as the second tower came down. There were still planes in the air, but for New York, it was done. They were “marching” on Washington, D.C.. We figured that the plane that crashed was on its way there as well. It was a westward movement that appeared to be timed very precisely. With planes in the air, our thoughts were turned to a fear that one-by-one, the planes in their control were going to make their way westward to the major cities. Were there planes in their control that were going to circle and wait for the time they were supposed to hit? Were there planes over the Pacific that were heading for our populous areas in California? Were they done with Washington, D.C.? Was the attack sophisticated enough to divert another plane to Washington in place of the one that had crashed?
As it grew time for Vinny to go to school, I reasoned that we did not even know if it was over. It had appeared it was over after the two planes, but then Washington was hit, so who was to say that it was done, especially with planes still in the air. How many of the planes already on the ground had hijackers on them still? My business for the morning was an appointment at South Coast Plaza, our local mall which was in fact quite a tourist attraction. I wondered if such a high-profile civilian target was on this list and called to cancel my appointment. I figured it would be best for us to stay close to home today.
As the morning wore on, it became apparent that there were no other planes in the air. There were reports already of suspicious-acting people on some of the flights that were on the ground. Reports of fighter jets over New York and Washington were coming in. The newscasts began to show the footage obtained from near the World Trade Center. New footage of the first plane hitting, new footage of the second plane hitting, footage from right near the towers when the first tower came down. It was like watching a scene out of a movie. It was so far away, yet so close to home. News reports throughout the day would show more and more footage - different angles, different views, different areas of what they were starting to call “Ground Zero.” Reports of the buildings around the towers beginning to collapse. Estimates of over 6,000 dead were flashing across the screens by the end of the night.
It is now the early morning hours of September 12th, and as I write this, we have no further word about Joe Allen. My dad is planning on flying as close as he can to the US/Mexico border, but with all flights grounded, we are going to have to go pick him up by car wherever he can get through. The planes have stopped, the attack is apparently over, and the news reports are now starting to speculate the why. The death toll is complete speculation and the news coverage is mostly of the tattered metal remains of the Twin Towers and some fires that are still persisting in the area as fire crews are looking for survivors. It is not actually completely confirmed, but it is highly speculated that it was most likely four commercial airliners that were hijacked. It is hard to grasp what has happened – four separate planes hijacked, three flown into buildings and one flown into the ground.
It is difficult to put into words what we were all feeling as we went to bed last night. I have not been able to sleep at all and I am still up, watching the news. There is an aura of disbelief. I keep reading what I wrote this morning over and over again and I’m not really sure how to end it. I’m honestly at a loss for words. I can only frame it in the context of history and say that it feels like this is going to by my generation’s Pearl Harbor and just as then, only time will tell where this leads us.
I tend to feel that yesterday’s events will be one of the things that we will all remember for the rest of our lives. I know that gets said quite a bit about quite a lot, but yesterday is definitely going to stand out in our memories.
I guess this will serve as a record of the minutes of early morning on September 11, 2001, and will be the bitter-sweet property of myself and my family for the rest of our lives. These are the minutes that I am honored and feel compelled to share to serve as a record for those who will come after us, for those who will wonder what it was like for most of us on that morning that for us, right now, was just yesterday.
Photo by Oliver Kepka via Pixabay
I must admit that I agree more with the people who do not want the Muslim Community Center and Mosque built near Ground Zero than those who do. I do see Mayor Michael Bloomberg's point about being able to build what you want on the land that you own, and I do see the Master and Commander's view on religious freedom in America and the message it might send, though as I said yesterday, I highly disagree with his invocation of the Founding Fathers to make his point, and more importantly, disagree with his position on the issue.
But, do you know what else I see? I see why if your loved one was killed on 9/11/01, you might not want to have to walk by a Muslim Community Center and Mosque with a questionable background on the way to the "hallowed ground" of the World Trade Center to visit the 9/11 memorial, or just to spend some time in the general area that you know your loved one spent the last few minutes of their life.
Do some research, and you will find that there were, in fact, a number of Muslims that died as victims of the attacks, but even the highest most trustworthy estimates put that number at well under 100 of the almost 3,000 victims that perished that day. A much larger number of the victims were believers in Christ-based faiths and Judaism. While the conspiracy theorists, far-leaning thinkers, and honestly, U.S.-haters, do not want us classifying them as such, the 19 men that caused 9/11 considered themselves to be Muslim. Regardless of the merits and beliefs of Islam and how the religious beliefs of most Muslims (especially those here in the U.S.) greatly differ in belief from what was carried out on 9/11, all the evidence seems to point to the fact that these 19 guys considered themselves to be Muslim and considered themselves to be waging a holy war against America and its Christians and Jews. All that being said, you really can see how the families of the victims and a large number of Americans might not want that Muslim Community Center and Mosque built right there, just a couple blocks from Ground Zero. I tend to find myself agreeing with this point.
What I would like to know more about, however, in light of this debate that I am hearing, is the background and financing trail of this group that wants to build this Muslim Community Center and Mosque right there next to Ground Zero. So, show me that this is a 100% completely upstanding group of Muslims who do not believe in violence, and do not believe that the September 11th attacks were something that we had coming, and maybe you will sway me. It just seems right now, that the jury is still out on that.
Do they have ties to terrorist groups and does their money have ties to terrorist groups? It seems no one is able to give us a straight answer on that, including the people that want to build the mosque. The people who want this mosque most definietly do not seem to be able to prove without a reasonable doubt that absolutely none of their money and support comes from extremist groups with an agenda. I do see that as a huge problem and a major part of this story, and my decision, which as I said, leans more towards the fact that this mosque should not be built there.
Yes, Mr. Bloomberg, they own the land and should be able to build what they want to on it by the letter of the law, and yes, Mr. Master and Commander, in that perfect little world that seems to only exist in your mind, we should live by the letter of the law in regards to religious freedom and what that means in America today, however, there are times when you need to look at things subjectively, regardless of what the laws say on paper. Isn't that what you believe about illegal immigration, Senor Obamos?
So, for now, I oppose the building of this mosque that close to Ground Zero. I understand the New York City Mayor's position, but disagree with it. I understand the President of The United States of America's position, but disagree with it, and will go as far as to say that I think he is speaking prematurely and has made a mistake that will cost him and his party some support from the American middle.
I understand what the separation is between the average everyday Muslim and these fanatical extremists, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking that there are not extremist Muslims with agendas still living and working in this country. And let's not forget what a small group of dedicated, like-minded people out to kill as many Americans as they can are capable of doing.
When speaking recently on the proposed Muslim Community Center and Mosque to be built near Ground Zero, The Master and Commander commented that "The writ of our founders must endure", referring, of course to, as he said, "our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable".
First off, know that I don't want to go back in time and change anything - I am not saying that this country was founded incorrectly, that we need to fix it (though it would be nice to go back in time and have an America that was always free of slavery), but I do want us to think about something when we think of the Founding Fathers, and most definitely when we invoke their intentions with our fine nation during its initial creation in the context of furthering our political views today (I'm talking to you, Master and Commander).
Think along the lines of me not wanting to go back and change too many things because we will not end up with the same nation that we have today. Sure, there is room for improvement over history, but who knows what you'll end up with if you got back and start tampering with things.
That being said, however, can we all please remember that this nation was founded by a group of white, Christ-based faith believing, mostly slave-owning, straight (definitely in the closet if not) men, who, while progressive for their time in terms of their thinking on government, established a nation that did not allow women the right to vote or own land and allowed for a person to be enslaved in permanent bondage and servitude.
I personally am sick and tired of hearing how it was the intention of this group of men that all men and women of all races (literally every human being on the planet) should be equal in all regards, and should all have equal rights including a civil right to water, food, shelter and public services. I am not saying that I don't believe in this, and I am not saying that I do not want this nation to have those principles today, but what I am saying is let's not go back and revise history in our minds to think that the Founding Fathers, the guys who were at the Continental Congress, fought in the Revolution, and established the framework for the United States of America, believed in these same principles, because quite clearly, they did not.
If you go back and read what most of the founders of the United States of America were writing at the time, you will most definitely see that it was not their intention for non-Christ-based faiths, women voters, women land owners, and people of color to have an equal place in the country as them. White, Christ-fearing land owner, you're in and here's your ballot - all others, some other, lesser role of servitude, and don't bother coming to the polls on election day.
Again, let's stick to our values and what we know to be right, but can we all please stop portraying the Founding Fathers as saints, because quite frankly, they were far from it.
It has been decided that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried on U.S. soil in a U.S. court room, just as if he had held up a liquor store or the Try N' Save.
In the wake of 9/11, Bush the Great Satan Junior put a $25 million bounty on Osama Bin Laden’s head, calling on any mercenary in the world to bring us his corpse.
After the decision to treat KSM like a common street thug, I am beginning to wonder if that attack had occurred on 9/11/2009 instead, if the Magician would have put out an All Points Bulletin with strict orders to bring Osama bin Laden in alive so that he could stand trial in a U.S. federal court, afforded the full rights and liberties of a U.S. citizen, much like KSM will be.
I do understand that there is a difference between Osama bin Laden and KSM, but this is as close as you can get to OBL, folks. Is KSM any less a terrorist than OBL? Was Goring less of a Nazi than Hitler?
Unfortunately, the decision has been made and there is nothing that we can do about it. America voted for hopey changey and that is what has been delivered to our doorstep…delivered just as easily as the invitation for every terrorist in the world to be in New York City during these upcoming trials.
Under the Bush administration, they were terrorists, but under the Obama administration, they are federal criminals. That is not just a play on words, folks, but in fact, two very different categories of criminal.
While I absolutely agree 100% that every American citizen should be given a fair trail for committing crimes in America, I do not, however, agree that an act of war committed by a foreign nationals, especially acts committed primarily against U.S. civilians, should not fall under the same category as a U.S. citizen who has committed a federal crime.
Again, this is not just a matter of semantics, but a matter of us creating a dangerous precedence; a matter of changing how the Western world has dealt with terrorism from September 11, 2001 until now.
If you refer back to Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, it reads, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
This defines what a citizen is in the context of the 14th Amendment, which has been in place since we had to re-define citizenship and the rights afforded to citizens and non-citizens following the Civil War. Under this wording, a foreign national does not have the same rights afforded to a U.S. citizen, including our right to a fair trial, tax-payer provided defense attorneys, etc., until the point at which they are brought to and housed within the jurisdiction of a U.S. state, either voluntarily, or against their will.
That is the reason why Gitmo was at Gitmo and not on U.S. soil. Frankly, the U.S. constitution does not apply to you until you are on U.S. soil as defined by the constitution. Gitmo, and the rest of our military bases around the world, are not governed in relation to foreign nationals as being covered under the U.S. constitution. Whether you agree with Bushie or not, this is why the terrorists, aka enemy combatants, were housed at Gitmo. That is also why you try war criminals and terrorists in a military tribunal and most definitely not on U.S. soil. Why in the world would you want to give the people that are fighting against you…the people that are trying to kill U.S. citizens the very same rights and liberties of a U.S. citizen?
I don’t know, and I wouldn’t think you would, but that is a question we are going to need to ask our President. What The Magician has done by bringing these terrorists to trial in a federal court on U.S. soil is immediately change their classification from a terrorist and enemy combatant to simply a foreign national who has committed a federal crime. He has reduced 9/11 from an act of war and barbarism against the American people to a federal crime committed against the people who were murdered that day. This act by The Magician moves this from a military matter of war to a civil matter of federal crime, providing these terrorists (oh, sorry, criminals) with the same liberties and rights that we all have as U.S. citizens in a federal courtroom. What a fantastic reward for masterminding the death of 4,000 of us! Honorary citizenship!
This President has made these terrorists honorary citizens of the United States, just as we do with any foreign nationals that we catch committing a crime against us within our borders. Access to tax-payer funded courts, judges, lawyers, resources, and jails (yes, some serve out their sentences here because we don’t want them to be mistreated when we send them back home to their own jails). The right to a fair trial for a foreign national who has committed a crime on our soil may make us a better country, Mr. Magician, but these guys aren't students who stayed here too long on an expired student visa and robbed a 7-11 -- these are the fundamentalists who masterminded the 9/11 attacks, and you have just humanized, and yes, even Americanized them in a way that we will be paying for even long after you have left office.
For years, authorities wondered about the identity of a U.S. Marine who appeared at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, helped find a pair of police officers buried in the rubble, then vanished.
Even the producers of the new film chronicling the rescue, “World Trade Center,” couldn’t locate the mystery serviceman, who had given his name only as Sgt. Thomas. The puzzle was finally solved when one Jason Thomas, of Columbus, Ohio, saw a TV commercial for the new movie a few weeks ago as he relaxed on his couch.
His eyes widened as he saw two Marines with flashlights, hunting for survivors atop the smoldering ruins. “That’s us. That’s me!” thought Thomas, who lived in Long Island during the attacks and now works as an officer in Ohio’s Supreme Court.
Thomas, 32, hesitantly re-emerged last week to recount the role he played in the rescue of Port Authority police officers Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin, who were entombed beneath 20 feet of debris when the twin towers collapsed.
Back in New York to speak of his experience and visit family, Thomas provided the AP with photographs of himself at ground zero. As further proof of his identity, the movie’s producer, Michael Shamberg, said Thomas and Jimeno have spoken by phone and shared details only the two of them would know.
Thomas, who had been out of the Marine Corps about a year, was dropping his daughter off at his mother’s Long Island home when she told him planes had struck the towers. He retrieved his Marine uniform from his truck, sped to Manhattan and had just parked his car when one of the towers collapsed. Thomas ran toward the center of the ash cloud.
“Someone needed help. It didn’t matter who,” he said. “I didn’t even have a plan. But I have all this training as a Marine, and all I could think was, ‘My city is in need.”’
Thomas bumped into another ex-Marine, Staff Sgt. David Karnes, and the pair decided to search for survivors. Carrying little more than flashlights and an infantryman’s shovel, they climbed the mountain of debris, skirting dangerous crevasses and shards of red-hot metal, calling out “Is anyone down there? United States Marines!”
It was dark before they heard a response. The two crawled into a deep pit to find McLoughlin and Jimeno, injured but alive. Jimeno would spend 13 hours in the pit before he was pulled free. Thomas stayed long enough to see him come up, but left due to exhaustion before McLoughlin, who remained pinned for another nine hours, was retrieved.
Thomas said he returned to ground zero every day for another 2 1/2 weeks to pitch in, then walked away and tried to forget. “I didn’t want to relive what took place that day,” he said.
Shamberg said he apologized to Thomas for an inaccuracy in the film: Thomas is black, but the actor cast to portray him, William Mapother, is white. Filmmakers realized the mistake only after production had begun, Shamberg said.
Thomas laughed and gently chided the filmmakers, then politely declined to discuss it further. “I don’t want to shed any negativity on what they were trying to show,” he said. As for his story, Thomas said he is gradually becoming more comfortable telling it. “It’s been like therapy,” he said.
The first time I saw the space shuttle Columbia, I was six years old, sitting on the floor of my grandmother’s den, watching the very first launch of a space shuttle into space in 1981. The very last time I saw Columbia, I was lying on the floor of my living room, talking on the phone with my brother who was not even born until over four years after Columbia made her maiden voyage into space. I had gone to sleep just a couple of hours before we lost Columbia on Saturday.
On the morning of January 28, 1986, I was on a whale watching field trip with my sixth grade class and I missed the launch of the Challenger. I was actually sitting on the beach in Newport, eating lunch when I heard what had happened that morning.
I pride myself on my patriotism and being appreciative of the gifts I have been given by this nation, but I am afraid that I, too, was guilty of complacency when it came to our space program.
One of the first things I bring up whenever talk turns to 9/11 is my shock...not my shock at what happened, but my shock that our entire nation had its head so far in the sand that no one saw it coming.
I began to talk about an attack on New York even when I was in high school in 1990, and I definitely was talking about it in 1998 when I made the comparison of our state of the nation in 1998 to our state of the nation in 1941.
In 1981, I took great pride in the success of Columbia and in 1986, I grieved with the rest of our nation at the loss of the Challenger crew. Throughout my life, I have enjoyed reading about the space program, watching the launches and live interviews with the crews from space. I also still marvel at the progress of the International Space Station.
I am currently compiling pieces for decorating my bedroom which I am calling the “America” room, but even as I was putting together pieces reflecting the Civil War, World War II, our Cold War culture, 9/11, and the spirit of old New York, the thought never crossed my mind about including our space program.
I am forced to place myself in a category of Americans who had taken the dangers of our space program far too lightly. Saturday, I mourned with the rest of the nation at the loss of the Columbia crew, as well as the symbolism of the loss of the first space shuttle to venture into orbit.
If you watch Star Trek: The Motion Picture, there is a grouping of artwork on the recreation deck of the ship that shows the ships that bore the name Enterprise. One of them is the space shuttle Enterprise, the only of one the six shuttles never to actually fly in space.
It was a novelty in 1979 to show the space shuttle Enterprise in the movie, but as we sit here in 2003, this is now just one of the many small things in life that will remind us of our space shuttle tragedies for years to come.
Whenever I saw a space shuttle, I almost immediately remembered the Challenger. Now, I have two tragedies to remember. Science fiction attempts to teach us where we are going in the future, and also, what we need to do to get there. Remember back to 1979...who could have known then that by 2003, two of the six space shuttles would be gone, and who could have known that we would be stuck in a quandary on February 1, 2003, about how to get our long-term space explorers home from an International Space Station?
On top of it, who would have known in 1979 that in 2003, one of our options would be to rely on the help of our Russian friends? There is in all of this, a lesson to be learned. We lost Challenger in 1986, but we went back up. We lost Columbia in 2003, and we will go back up. We tamed a wild continent called America, even though it took 200 years. We will tame the final frontier, no matter how long it takes.
I am sorry that somewhere between 1986 and 2003, I took for granted the bravery and sacrifice of each person that straps on a space suit and then straps themselves to a controlled explosion to get into space. These people, just as much as any soldier on the battlefield, have helped make America what it is today through their bravery. These are the people who would climb into Discovery, Atlantis, or Endeavor today, despite everything, to go and do their job, whether it be research, defense, or bringing stranded astronauts home.
These are the people that died in a capsule fire, trying to get us to the moon...these are the people that spent the last seconds of their lives, some in 1986, and some in 2003, aboard a space shuttle. Such determination can be summed up in one small phrase...“We are Americans.” I have learned my lesson...I will not forget again...
There are so many things in our everyday lives that we are looking at differently now, after 9/11.
Financial Journalist Andrew Feinberg captured the new way that we must look at portfolio diversity best when he wrote, “In the post-9/11 world, I fear that our painstakingly diversified portfolio is actually dangerously concentrated. I mean, we are overweighted in Manhattan big-time.”
This is something new in investing, but a very valid point in the world we are living in today. Every analyst will preach non-stop about the importance of your portfolio being diversified. In yesterday’s world, diversifying amongst different countries, different sectors, different companies, different sized-companies and different company philosophies was enough, but with terrorism threatening U.S. cities, investors even need to diversify where their investments lie within the U.S.
Business in Manhattan literally ground to a halt on 9/11 and some investors learned that their diversified portfolios were extremely heavily invested in companies that resided in Manhattan. Investors need to check their portfolios to ensure that their U.S. investments are spread out over the geography of the nation as well.
I think even after all the time we’ve had to ponder since the morning of September 11, 2001, it is still hard for the average American to truly grasp what happened that morning.
I believe eSpeed, Inc.’s Executive VP Joseph Noviello really put the events of that fateful morning into perspective for me in a way I hadn’t really thought about yet.
Think about where you work, the people you work with, and the tasks that you share at your job as you read Noviello’s comments:
”People did whatever it took. Those whose managers had died showed their skills as natural leaders. Their instincts for what to do were so strong.”
That’s not a military officer talking about soldiers, but a business executive talking about his employees.
While September 11th showed us the worst of mankind, it also showed us the strength in everyday people.
My thoughts are with all Americans today as we mourn the loss of our collective innocence one year ago today...Let us never forget the tragic and heroic events of that fateful day as we push forward into our future...
Seven years ago, Fred Alger, the founder of Fred Alger Management decided it was time for some rest after taking himself, investors, and his company to the forefront of the investment world.
Fred handed the reigns over to his brother David who had been with him all along and then made his way to retirement split between Switzerland and parts of the U.S. This past September as Fred and his wife were getting ready to leave the house in East Hampton, New York, which they had leased for a month’s vacation, Fred glanced at the television and saw One World Trade Center ablaze.
Fred Alger had chosen the 93rd floor of the World Trade Center for his offices and recalls that it took him quite some time to realize not only that his brother and former colleagues were in harm’s way, but that they had been killed in the attack. Nearly all of the firm’s employees perished.
Fred Alger Management was virtually wiped out on September 11th, but in the typical Fred Alger style, instead of leaving his investors in peril, he immediately cancelled retirement indefinitely and is now working to get the firm back on its feet.
Former employees who had moved on after coming into their own at Fred Alger immediately lined up to help run the now-leaderless funds and pensions. Today, almost a year later, Fred Alger Management is pretty much back on its feet and pushing forward, a symbol of spirit and determination.
Ours is a tale that has many beginnings, and even as I begin to tell it, I still do not know where it should start. I know only that I hope it is a tale that we shall never see end. When I look back and try to express how I feel, where do I begin? Where do I begin to measure our patriotism? How do I gauge such a thing? Do I begin to measure in the 1700s when my forefathers came to the new world from England? Do I imagine what it must have been like to make a supreme sacrifice for my beliefs, just as I imagined during the hours of solitude I spent in a Union Cemetery in downtown Marietta, Georgia a few years back? Do I start by trying to imagine what the Atlantic Crossing was like for our forefathers from Salerno? How did that compare to my great-great grandmother’s journey north to California in a covered wagon? Maybe I should start by telling of the smile I remember on my great-great grandmother’s face when I was younger. At 90 years, oh the tales she had to tell.
Though the foundations of patriotism are there, is patriotism not lost if it so easily forgotten, or gone out of style from lack of use and remembrance? Much like many of us today, there are so many questions floating around in my mind that I could ask end-on-end for days without repeating a single one.
For us, patriotism owns these long roots back into history. Tales of our family that I was told second-hand laid the foundation. When I look back first-hand, where does patriotism begin? It began in the black-and-white photo of my mother’s parents on their wedding day, my grandfather in his dress blue navy uniform. It began with a story my father told me of his father almost falling off a medical chopper after he was wounded in Korea. It began when we watched that same man laid to rest with military honors after cancer got the best of him. It began with stories of my great-uncle’s actions as a soldier, though by the time I met him as a child, I first remembered him for his pool table den and the laughter he filled it with. It began at baseball games when we would sing the national anthem and I could never get through the entire thing without shedding at least a hidden tear. It began with the pitcher of beer that my life-long friends and I shared with the Blue Angels at the Miramar Air Show where we accompanied my best friend’s father’s T-6, a World War II trainer that gave me chills to even look upon, let alone sit in. Knowing that there is a T-6 out there right now with a wing tip that I helped rivet on always fills me with such pride. It began with that same best friend's father's collection of artifacts from World War II, US issue worn by our soldiers, and German and Japanese-issue collected as our boys pushed forward to victory. It began at the Vietnam Memorial during our trip to Washington, D.C. in eighth grade. It began at Arlington Cemetery where we saw the graves of great, courageous Americans. That all leads me to where this should begin.
August 1999, we stood quietly together, looking down at the U.S.S. Arizona. I had long wondered growing up what it would feel like to be there. Once you are there, you know it is impossible to describe how it feels to stand on the memorial, reading the names, looking down at the hull, looking over the harbor, looking up to the sky and towards the sea where the attack was launched. That trip to Hawaii for my 25th birthday definitely gave the roots of patriotism a growth-spurt.
Over the previous years, there was so much to be emotional about. I was on a whale-watching trip in sixth grade the day the Space Shuttle Challenger met its fate. Two years later, I visited the memorial to the astronauts at Arlington. Three years after that, I came home from high school and watched 24-hour coverage of the Gulf War. We all watched Panama, Somalia, Bosnia, Albania, and saw bombings in Oklahoma and New York Cities. We shook inside at the Embassy Bombings and said a silent prayer for the men and women of the U.S.S. Cole. We feared and speculated over Flight 800, and watched mad-men crash planes into the ocean in Africa and even right off the Atlantic Coast. We smiled when we saw Ford, we felt humbled when we buried Nixon, we watched Carter work for peace, we thanked Reagan for working to end the cold war, remembering what it was like to watch the wall come down, all the while, our hearts breaking as we learned from Nancy of the one battle in his life he was losing. We backed George Senior in the war, and hoped with everyone for prosperity when Clinton took office. Some loved and some hated the man through the eight years, while far too many came to not even care at all. We marveled, however, whenever anything went wrong, whenever there was a job to be done, despite personal feelings, the country stood behind him. Though they lost the elections, we admired Bob Dole and wondered what President Ross Perot would have been like.
So came 2000 and we went to work on the campaign. We chose our sides and drew the lines, but didn’t know that Florida was coming. Here in California, we spoke out on the issues, we let our patriotism guide us. This campaign, we even ended up at a rally in Costa Mesa, where we saw our long-time congressman and friend Dana Rohrabacher run across the stage with a “Bush 2000” surfboard, waiting for Dick Cheney and Colin Powell to speak on their vision of tomorrow’s America. Little did we all know on that day what those two men would be doing a year later. We heard out our friends who were backing Gore, but still made it to the Republican victory party where we learned that we would have to wait some time to see who won. We laughed when we were called a “Fat Cat Nation” by our rivals and enjoyed the taunt so much, though we never used the term before, “Fat Cat” is often used by us all now. No matter what we said and no matter how we felt, it was a marvel to watch the machine of democracy, as imperfect as it is admirable, play out over the coming months.
Also in 2000, I sat in a darkened movie theater, the same one we visit at least once a week to relax and spend time together, whether it’s a love story with my girlfriend, a horror movie with my brother, an epic with my parents, or a comedy with my friends. It was there for the very first time, we saw a preview for Pearl Harbor. Sure, it was going to be Hollywood, but what it stood for, the tale that it was going to tell, never allowed me, even on a single occasion to watch that damned preview without tears swelling up in my eyes. I remembered being there just a year earlier, the unbelievable silence of it all, while I sat in that theater, noticing how little everyone around me even gave a damn about what story it would tell, talking and laughing, ignoring it all. Was it because it was 60 years ago, or was it just complacency?
I remember the pride I felt, when in early 2001, I saw so many of us, despite how we felt, looking forward not as Democrats or Republicans, but really trying to just be Americans. I remember the shame and disgust I felt when ballots and votes were being scrutinized so closely that a single vote was making such a huge difference amidst reports of the record-breaking amount of the thousands upon thousands of Americans who had chosen to not even vote. When they saw Ben Afleck, when they saw Tom Hanks, when they saw Mel Gibson, they realized not, that though they were actors, they were trying to portray a million Americans who had come and gone, fallen and sacrificed so very much so that we all could live the life that we live.
In February, I lost an uncle and my aunt lost a life-long love. I helped to carry his body in the chilling cold, but once we had said good-bye, I walked my girlfriend and brother over to the Veteran’s Memorial at the cemetery, where holding back tears, I led them in saying, “Thank you.” It was there that it truly hit me. It was there and then that I began to truly fear what might be coming. After watching the preview for Pearl Harbor, no matter who I was with, the conversation would immediately commence about how ironic I felt it was that the movie was coming out at a time such as it was. As I stood there in the cold wind, I remembered talking to everyone close to me about how I worried about the similarities of these days to those.
In 1941, we had our heads in the sand. We knew there was trouble abroad, but we were doing all that we could to stay out of it. We went here and there and made deals here and there. The enemies of freedom chipped away little by little, but though we shouted at them, in the end, they got to do as they pleased. The average American was much more concerned about their life as a whole and figured that the safety of the nation as a whole was not their responsibility or concern. Though we were still Americans, we grew complacent. Though it can be argued that hind-sight is 20/20, deep in my heart of hearts, the heart that had experienced all of these emotions about our nation, I grew worried that the foresight I was experiencing in 2001 was just as clear.
So, for the remainder of roughly the first three-quarters of 2001, when the conversation turned to politics or the state of the nation as it always tends to do, I voiced my concern that we were ripe for attack. You would hear me say with sarcasm, “It’s 2001 and we rule the world. No one can seriously harm us because we are so big and powerful. We’ve hit a few speed bumps, but it’s OK to ignore the warning signs because nothing is going to happen. We can afford to ignore those empty threats and we can afford to let those who have threatened us go un-checked. Just like we felt we could afford to appease Japan and Germany, we do not go after Bin Laden because it will be too hard to get to him. We ignored the blimps on our radar screen on the morning of December 7th just like we wonder if Clinton fired on the pharmaceutical company to draw attention away from what he did in the Oval Office, or if truly, he thought he was going to get Bin Laden…it didn’t really matter, because after all, what could he really do? Hitler was Europe’s problem, and damn it if Bin Laden shouldn’t be someone else’s, too. Yeah, I think they’re lying to us about peace, but we just better wait and see, because you never know, that guy with no flight experience who all of the sudden wants to learn how to fly a jumbo jet as soon as possible may just be doing so on a whim, even though he doesn’t really want to be taught how to take off or land.”
It was this complacency in America that led me to get involved in the 2000 campaign. It was all the heads in the sand that made me want to do something before it was too late. Perhaps I just knew it was time…For twenty-seven years, I lived in the “system” and I was its beneficiary. It was time, I felt, for me to step up and do what I could to do my part.
Well, the election went how it went and I settled in for four years of the administration that I believed in and voted for. As the days of 2001 passed, life continued as normal. My father earned his living by spending his time split between California, New York, Mexico, Pennsylvania, and even sometimes other places as well. Sometimes I find it ironic that I earn my living right here in my very home while he spends so much time away from it. With his travels to New York, my father has made friends there. He lived there for five years some time ago, and I think deep down, has been happy to be back and I am happy that my family has made these new friends. In early September, my father, brother, and mother made a trip to New York together, a trip they make a few times a year now. They came back with the usual stories of good times and travel nightmares, telling me of their friends and friends of friends that they would love for me to someday meet. On this particular trip, my family had dinner with Joe Allen, a close family friend of my dad’s good friend Joey. Upon their return my parents commented on how much Joe, Joey and I had in common, Joe and I because he worked in finance and Joey and I because he loved cars, and in particular, a certain German flavor.
So, this leads us now, to another beginning. On the night of September 10th, I sat down at my desk and read the latest newsletter from “the congressman,” as we’ve come to call him now. I remembered the rally and him running across the stage, having a good time, as I sat and read of the serious business he was working on at hand. Ironic it seems, that as feverishly as I threw myself into the issues, I cannot even remember what the issues in that newsletter were. I had planned on sending an email to the congressman, giving him my views and thanking him again, but I grew kind of tired from having worked most of the night. It was nearing 3:00 in the morning, so I decided to write to the congressman tomorrow. To date, I have not written that email.
My grandmother has always been an early riser. For as long as I can remember, she woke early, got my grandfather on his way to work, then turned on the news or an exercise program until it was time for her to start her day. I hadn’t been asleep for more than a few hours, when the knock on the door woke me. I opened it to find no one there, but then heard my mother calling from the kitchen. I wonder how long I’ll remember it this vividly. When I walked towards the kitchen, she said, “Grandma just called. A plane hit one of the towers.” Though we don’t live in New York, there’s enough time spent over there that it could have only meant the World Trade Center.
My grandmother’s reaction was the same as mine and that was why she had called. My first thought was of my dad and where he was in the world that morning. My grandmother called to make sure he wasn’t in New York, but luckily, he had flown out of New York City for Mexico City, then on to Honduras the morning of the 10th. Of course, the “What if’s” immediately come to mind. What if he’d been coming home on the morning of the 11th and what if they’d chosen his flight? When my mom first told me, I figured it was a small private plane or something of the sorts that had been in an accident, but once I saw the damage that strike had made, I knew there was no way that was a small plane. That in itself gave me some relief since all of my friends who are pilots still fly nothing larger than a private corporate jet.
Once I knew my dad and my friends were safe, what had happened really began to sink in. A plane had hit one of the towers. Even after all of the dooms-day worry I had done in the past year, it still didn’t click. I moved to our living room, turned on the big TV and watched, waiting to hear how an accident like this could have happened. As I sat there in the first few minutes, my mom came in and asked me if I remembered them talking about Joe Allen. I told her that I did and she then told me that he works in one of the towers, but she wasn’t sure which one. I commented that it looked like the plane had hit pretty high and I was sure that people were able to get down out of the building, despite the strike. Maybe Joe didn’t work in that tower. Maybe he hadn’t gotten to work yet this morning.
As soon as we finished our conversation, I remembered that when I got home from high school on the day the Gulf War began, I recorded the news footage so that I could one day show my little brother who was five at the time, the coverage of the Gulf War. This time, I didn’t think about the VCR, but instead hurried down the hall to wake my brother up so he could see such a newsworthy event as an accident of this magnitude. Vinny was slow waking up, but finally made his way to the living room where watched for what seemed some time. We took in the speculation from the newscasters, making a few speculations ourselves. It was then, for the first time that we began to wonder. An inexperienced pilot in a small plane ending up in a once-in-a-lifetime accident of this magnitude was one thing, but a commercial pilot, even a small commercial plane pilot, hitting that building on accident on a clear morning began to seem nearly impossible.
Speculation ran wild from the newscasters and they tried to report every little detail that they could get their hands on. I don’t remember what a lot of it was, looking back, but I do remember one thing. There were two reports. One from someone watching radar via the internet, and another from a person on the ground that there was a plane heading north almost literally up the Hudson River, right that second, as we were watching. I remember the thought crossing my mind how odd that seemed, but of course, it had to be regular traffic and people were just noticing it today because of the accident.
The next thing I remember was when my mom called out from the kitchen, “Oh my God, did you see that?!” At first we thought it was an explosion, maybe the fuel in the crashed plane igniting finally from the heat, but as the newscast instant replay would show, that was the second plane hitting the other tower. Though we had speculated it, this was when it hit home. We were under attack. It wasn’t an army marching up the beach, or paratroopers launched from off-shore. They weren’t blazing across the border like we were used to. My Lord, they were actually flying planes into buildings. I thought of the old plane lots in the desert out here, and even the used jumbo jet dealership in Las Vegas at the airport. Though it truly did not matter to the people who I knew had just lost their lives in that tower, I hoped that those were stolen planes and not hijacked ones. Vinny and I talked on it as we watched the replay over and over. Together we hoped that the buildings were mostly empty. That people had slept in because it was Tuesday and not Monday, that they didn’t need to get an early start on their work. Sadly, though, we knew, it was the finance district, the World Trade Center, and it was more than likely that so many people were already working when those planes hit the towers. I thought of my old job that I started each morning at 7:30. I would have been sitting at my desk. We didn’t want to believe it, but they were sitting at their desks. It was then that I called Teresa. She had been at the gym early in the morning and had seen the newscast, but without sound, was unsure of what was going on. I found myself in disbelief in telling her that we were under attack. I told her to make sure she stayed out of populated areas and to stay close to home in case I needed to come get her. It was then that I began to call all of people I could think of that I knew that would probably not have put a TV or a radio on this early in the morning to tell them the same.
By now, my mom had spoken to my dad. He was on a plane from Honduras to Mexico City when the first plane hit, but we breathed another sigh of relief as he was safe on the ground, and being in Mexico, we figured, even safer than we were now. My dad was calling New York to check on everyone and my mom was calling him to learn of the news. While this was going on, Vinny and I had slowed our conversation a bit. There wasn’t really much else to say at this point. The images of the towers in flame were intense, and we hoped that the worst was over. It was then that we learned that there were planes unaccounted for and that all traffic was being told to land. I remember the sheer fright of learning that though most of them were confirmed as OK, the FAA was reporting nearly a thousand planes in the air. How many of them were there? What’s around us? Is there anything here in Huntington Beach that would be worth hitting? We immediately came up with contingency plans. Where we would go and what we would do. We figured if the nuclear plant at San Onofre were hit, we’d have enough time to get in the car and drive north before the radiation reached us. Though we griped and moaned when they closed the Air Base at El Toro and the Navy Yard in Long Beach, I think at that moment, I was secretly glad that they were not operating anymore because they were two less targets. I was reminded at that time of the fear I had as a little kid, of course, only when I thought of it, that my grandmother’s house where I spent so much time was only a couple miles from the Naval Weapons Station in Huntington Harbor that of course buzz had labeled as a primary target during the cold war that was on at time.
As we were contemplating this all, I’ll never forget how unbelievable it was to hear the street-cleaner going by outside. It was Tuesday morning as always, but I could not fathom that here we sat watching God-knows how many people die, watching in my lifetime, this nation come under attack on its own soil, all the while thinking, when was the last time…1812?...Did the battles of the civil war count?...Hawaii wasn’t a state in 1941, so they don’t count that, do they?...What in the hell does this count as? For some reason, while all of this is going through my head, I come to realize that my mom’s car is still in front of the house. Looking back, it seems so very weird that while watching this horror unfold, thinking of all of the possibilities of what could be next, that my instinct at the time was to run outside and move the car before we got a measly parking ticket.
So, my mom beats me out the door. While I pondered how amazing it was that we both still prioritized moving the car before getting a ticket above all else at the time, my mom ran to the car and started it. It was then that I noticed a good deal of our neighbors were also standing outside, literally in disbelief as well at what was going on. Between the guy in the street cleaner and the three parking control officers that followed him in their trucks, had they gotten to work so early that morning that they did not know? Had they not had a radio station tuned in, or even been told by dispatch what was going on? I do not know if they gave out tickets that morning because it appeared that everyone on my block had gotten out there the same time that we did and moved their cars. Either way, I made it a point before going back in to the house to yell at each passing parking control officer, “Don’t you know that the country is under attack?! And you are out here writing people tickets for not moving their cars?!” By the dumfounded look I got, I truly believe they had no clue what was going on.
Once back in the house, I settled on the floor in front of the TV, my nerves still shuddering from all that was going on this morning. As my mom walked down the hall to her room, calling my dad, Vinny and I took a close look at the towers. Vinny then told me that he remembered Joe saying that he worked on the 107th floor. As we studied the scene before us, it became apparent. No matter which tower Joe had worked in, if he had been in the office when either of the planes hit either of the buildings, he would be above the collision point. Though we knew, watching helplessly, there were so many people in those buildings that were not going to ever find a way down through the fires, we hoped. We threw out scenarios…Maybe the fire crews could eventually get up there with water and put the fires out. There had to have been places in the buildings that were not engulfed in flames. Places where people could have crouched, maybe near a broken window so they could breathe. Maybe they could bring in water-dropping planes and helicopters. Maybe if they got the fires under control, they could land helicopters on the roof and start pulling people off.
That was when it happened. We were talking out scenarios, studying as detailed as we could the image of the burning buildings on the screen when it looked like one of the towers had disappeared in a cloud of smoke. The camera angle that was being shown just showed the top portion of the buildings. I said to Vinny, “Is it gone?” Vinny and I both looked at the screen as closely as we could. There was a lot of smoke there, but it really looked like it had vanished. After we had spent about thirty seconds going back and forth, the newscaster noticed the same thing. He asked that they run the tape back because it looked like something else had happened. Sure enough, when they showed the playback in slow motion from the same angle, you could see the entire building fall. As soon as we made the realization, Vinny went running to the back of the house to tell my mom to come and see. By now, they had a few different angles that were confirming that it looked like the entire building, not just the top portion, had fallen.
I honestly do not remember when I first saw the Pentagon. I do not recall if it was before or after the first tower collapsed. I know now the order in which the events happened, but I cannot recall exactly when we learned of them that morning. To the best of recollection, it was after the first tower fell that the newscasters broke into their own commentary of the towers to report that they were receiving word of a large, billowing smoke cloud in Washington, D.C. Again, we hoped for the best. We hoped that it was a brush fire, or maybe an accidental building fire, or something, but as you know, we were proven wrong again. A few minutes later, the newscasters were reporting that it was the Pentagon. There wasn’t a close enough image to show the damage to the Pentagon yet, just a long-shot from somewhere in the city of the smoke cloud. We then figured the worst…that like the tower, the entire building was gone.
So, this was it. At this point, we figured it was an all-out attack. The FAA was reporting that there were still some one hundred planes in the air, some of which were still not confirmed as in the hands of their pilots. The FAA was grounding everything they could land and not letting anything else take off, but there were still one-hundred flying bombs in the air, each loaded with passengers. Then, there were the international flights. If they had gotten passenger planes here in the U.S., which still hadn’t been confirmed yet, then why wouldn’t it be conceivable that there were planes from Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan?
If I recall correctly, it was about the same time that the newscasters were reporting a small plane crash in Pennsylvania that they announced that they were getting word that American Airlines had confirmed that two of their flights were missing. It wasn’t set in stone, but we knew it. As soon as that report came in, it was enough for us to know that there were at least four planes…the two in New York, the one in Washington and the one in Pennsylvania. If they had gotten two passenger jets, then they had gotten four, and if they had gotten four, Lord knows how many of them they had.
It seemed that about every few minutes, the newscasters were reporting how many planes were still left in the air. They had concluded the same. We knew of four, but how many of them were there? It was then that I noticed that my mom had walked back to her room and had been in there for some time. Vinny and I had been trying to keep her informed while she was getting ready for work, but had not seen her for a while. When I called back to her, she emerged from her room, on the phone, holding her hand up to quiet me. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how she told me, and I definitely know that I will never forget the incident itself. My mom just said, “Oh my God,” over and over again into the phone as she started to tear up. We knew at that minute that it was news about Joe.
My mom got off the phone and walked down the hall to tell us. She said that Joey had just gotten a call from Joe’s fiancée’s work and that Joey’s cousin who was also Joe’s fiancée, was hysterical with grief and that they needed him to come to her. Joe had, in fact, been at work when the plane hit his building. He had tried to get out, but when he realized that he was not going to be able to get down, he took out his cell phone and called his fiancée to tell her good-bye. He told her that he loved her, asked her to please tell his family that he loved them, that he didn’t think he was going to make it, and then, the phone went dead. As far as we know today, that was the last that anyone heard from Joe. I don’t recall exactly at what point I called my girlfriend Teresa to tell her what I learned of Joe and his fiancée, but I do definitely recall that I was so choked up that I could barely tell her. Just the thought of what it was like for Joe, the thought of what it would have been like to get that last phone call from him.
With Joe’s fate still fresh in our minds, we watched in inevitable disbelief, yet at the same time, a with frightening expectation, as the second tower came down. There were still planes in the air, but for New York, it was done. They were “marching” on Washington, D.C.. We figured that the plane that crashed was on its way there as well. It was a westward movement that appeared to be timed very precisely. With planes in the air, our thoughts were turned to a fear that one-by-one, the planes in their control were going to make their way westward to the major cities. Were there planes in their control that were going to circle and wait for the time they were supposed to hit? Were there planes over the Pacific that were heading for our populous areas in California? Were they done with Washington, D.C.? Was the attack sophisticated enough to divert another plane to Washington in place of the one that had crashed?
As it grew time for Vinny to go to school, I reasoned that we did not even know if it was over. It had appeared it was over after the two planes, but then Washington was hit, so who was to say that it was done, especially with planes still in the air. How many of the planes already on the ground had hijackers on them still? My business for the morning was a haircut appointment at South Coast Plaza, our local mall which was in fact quite a tourist attraction. I wondered if such a high-profile civilian target was on this list and called to cancel my appointment. I figured it would be best for us to stay close to home today.
As the morning wore on, it became apparent that there were no other planes in the air. There were reports already of suspicious-acting people on some of the flights that were on the ground. Reports of fighter jets over New York and Washington were coming in. The newscasts began to show the footage obtained from near the World Trade Center. New footage of the first plane hitting, new footage of the second plane hitting, footage from right near the towers when the first tower came down. It was like watching a scene out of a movie. It was so far away, yet so close to home. News reports throughout the day would show more and more footage - different angles, different views, different areas of what they were starting to call “Ground Zero.” Reports of the buildings around the towers beginning to collapse. Estimates of over 6,000 dead were flashing across the screens by the end of the night.
By the early morning hours of September 12th, the entire world had seen it and would come to share in the experiences that we all will mutually share and remember for the rest of our lives, but these, the minutes of early morning on September 11th, will be the bitter-sweet property of myself and my family for the rest of our lives. These are the minutes that I am honored and feel compelled to share to serve as a record for those who will come after us, for those who will wonder what it was like for most of us on that morning. We will each have our own memory, and this is my memory of that morning and the events in my life before that morning that shaped how I felt and still feel today.
