On that sunny Tuesday in 2001, I’d been listening to music on the way to work, so I stepped into my newspaper office as ignorant as a robin. As I walked to my desk, the head editor — a guy I didn’t much like — came barreling around a corner.
“Hey! You want to go to New York?” he asked as he breezed by.
“Nope!” I said cheerfully. “Why?”
He didn’t slow his pace but called over his shoulder, “A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.”
I said something like, “Whoa! Pilot error,” because that’s as far as my imagination could take me that morning.
That changed. Everything changed. Within minutes, every television in the newsroom was tuned to the ongoing horror. When the second towers fell, I remember looking from my left to my right to see if everyone else was seeing what I was seeing.
I wrote something that day that was entirely forgettable along with the millions of other gallons of ink spilled as we (mostly fruitlessly) tried to figure out what just happened. I did go to New York that week,and I collected stories that will stay with me forever.
The day our Saudi “friends” attacked I was playing in the American Water Works golf outing at Tunxis Plantation in Farmington as the guest of some engineers. On one tee the hostesses were very noisily speaking. As it turns out they were discussing the attack. At that point everything changed. Many engineers had friends and contacts in the towers, we played out our round in hurried silence then I raced home where all eyes were glued to the tube. Let us NEVER forget and always remember how McConnell and Ryan held up funding for first responders, who to this day continue to suffer and die from their efforts that fateful day and beyond!
I had taken the day off to have some work done at my condo. As per my routine, I had my butt parked on the floor in front of my coffee table with my coffee, having my morning smoke (don't do that gross stuff anymore) with the Hartford Courant spread out in front of me, and the Today Show on the TV. I recall them reporting about an incident at one of the towers (fire), and while watching, I saw the second plane hit live time. To say I was stunned is an understatement. The handyman and his partner showed up and had no clue what was going on as they were listening the CD's. We spent about 45 minutes standing in front of the TV slackjawed. They went to go do their thing, and my phone ringing of the hook compliments of my sister who was freaked about family whose jobs had them in that area of the city. Everyone was located safe. A friend of mine that lived in Stratford and worked in CT, arrived at Grand Central, saw the chaos and got on the next train home. Side note: I had also taken the day off when the plane crashed a couple of weeks later in The Rockaways (fuel tank issue). My job told me that I couldn't take any more days off due to tragedies happening on those days. WABC out of NY got a lot of my listening time that whole month. This tragedy actually compelled my cousin and her husband to get married. They had been together for 20 years, but never married. October 13, 2001 they did the deed.
Interesting how that event changed the trajectory of people's lives, even if we had no relatives or friends who were hurt or killed. I can just imagine you three -- strangers -- standing watching the television together.
It was seriously messed up. All of my cousins are Long Islanders. Two of them are volunteer firefighters. One of them was living in Florida when all this went down. He sought out his boss and told him he was heading home, got in his truck and headed north with just the clothes he was wearing. His Long Island fire company was on the scene searching, met up with them, and started searching. He lost his childhood best friend in one of the towers.
I was taking a friend to the bank, when a garbage truck pulled into my car. We were in the parking lot waiting for the police, when my friend called the bank to say we were late... the bank person told Gail what had happened. So the trash collectors, Gail and I found out in a parking lot and we stood together and held hands as we waited for the cops. There was nothing TO say in the shock.
Was at work in Windsor, CT. A coworker came by my desk and said, "A small plane crashed into the World Trade Center". I felt my eyes go wide. I got up from my desk and headed to the lobby of the building I worked in. A financial firm that had part of the building had a TV in the lobby. The TV showed the NYC skyline with smoke coming from the right side of the picture. I called my wife and told her to find a news station. She did - and yelled "OH MY GOD" into the phone just as a second plane hit the other tower. The rest of the day was a blur of work and news bulletins. When I got home, my wife and kids were upset. We had to turn off the TV for a bit for everyone to calm down.
During the summer I would usually get up around 10 AM , but when school would start I would sleep until noon
On that day I actually slept until 1 PM
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I turned on the tv
My ex came home around 2:30 and she decided that it would be a good time to have a talk about our relationship because she thought she would have my undivided attention
WRONG
I started work at 3:30 PM and when I got there I was told that there was going to be a meeting about the event ( they had one earlier for the first shift)
They put a tv in the cafeteria for viewing eduring the shift so we could keep up with what was happening
I was working as a "Loaned-Executive" at the United Way. I was sitting in an office at the top of City Place in a meeting that (obviously) ended quickly. Two things I remember in the aftermath: 1) my youngest child was eleven and she asked if it was the end of the world; 2) many of my colleagues immediately began beating war-drums. When I hung a quote from Dr. MLK on my door, some of them stopped speaking to me.
I was at the barn at a riding lesson with my horse Jazzy who has since passed. The barn owner said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Somewhat like you, I could only imagine perhaps a small private plane had hit through pilot error. As the news trickled it, I became terrified for my in-laws who I knew were flying that morning. By 11 am feared my husband would be deployed again to go to war. He was.
It was my day off and, as usual in those days, I took a nice long walk with Sydney ( dog) and we both enjoyed that spectacular September morning…cloudless skies and cool temperatures. Got home just before 9am.
Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023Liked by Susan Campbell
I was at work in Hartford. It was a rare day in the office. I was usually on the road and frequently in the southwest part of the state but not that day. A guy who worked with me got a call from home and told me. Soon enough we were all gathered in a conference room watching it on TV in time to see the towers collapse. At that point we were sent home. I knew that a friend had a meeting that morning at St. Vincent’s Hospital in lower Manhattan, which btw ended up being a major triage center. I started dialing her cell which was pointless at the time, finally hearing from her that evening as she made it to Montauk, on the end of Long Island, to take the ferry to New London, the only way she could get back to Connecticut.
I posted the link to this on the old Dating Jesus site when David Bowie died but it’s appropriate today. The video starts with Bowie singing over film clips and moves to him onstage opening the Concert for New York City. It’s one of the more moving tributes.
The piece below was written by my cousin a day or so after that fateful day. Yearly he sends it out on this day. Yearly I read It.
From the desk of
Bill Green
Never Be The Same
Dear friends. . .
Although I have thought long and hard on the issue at hand (that being the terrible tragedy that occurred last Tuesday (9/11/2001), and its impact on me, I realize that a response leaves me vulnerable to the judgment of others.
Yet, with the constant barrage from so many who seem to share a singular voice of rage, hatred, and revenge, I, too, feel that it is necessary for this one voice to be heard as well.
As deeply saddened as I am by last Tuesday's tragedy, a sadness that seems to deepen with each passing day, I struggle with the underlying message that has surfaced from the media ever since – that message being that this country will never be the same as a result of last Tuesday's unimaginable act of violence and subsequent grief that has followed.
Whereas it is undeniably true that, for me, things will never be the same, the question that keeps rattling around in my brain, and from that deep place of sadness in my heart, is what, then, for me will be different?
What am I willing to change?
Will I look more deeply than ever to realize the many privileges of living in such a land as America as something that the greater portions of the world can only imagine?
Will I therefore look upon my brethren – African-American, Arab-American, Asian-American, European-American, Jewish-American, Mexican-American, Native-American – Christian, Buddhist, Hebrew, Muslim – and all the many other cultures, races, and religions, far too many to name, as equal parts of a greater whole called humankind?
Or, will I seek to justify hatred, when loving forgiveness demands too much from my finite soul? Will I ask what can be done to heal this gaping wound inflicted upon my country – a country that has oft times invisibilized me – as opposed to asking what must be done to inflict more wounds, while knowing fully well that my world as I know it is already so overwhelmed with a grief that will never heal?
Will I seek Divine guidance as I search the innermost regions of my vulnerable heart to try and try to understand the impossible, as well as the unforgivable? Or will I justify vengeance, blindly, under the guise of God?
Will I take it upon myself to recall the devastation's dealt out by my country during my brief lifetime – the atom bomb, Viet Nam, social injustice and blatant racism – with indifference? Or will I take it upon myself to confront the limitations of a human heart such as mine that will be tempted to say, “Oh, well, that's different!”. . . ?
Will I love differently that which I don't understand? Or will I allow my cultural ignorance's to remain my personal justifications to continue to treat those unlike myself as if they don't exist?
Will I become an advocate for harmony in diversity? Or will I once again succumb to the hollow cry of, America, love it or leave it!! . . . ?
Will I teach my children to love in ways that I never thought of before last Tuesday? Or will I self-justifiably condemn a whole people for the acts of a faceless circle of hatred?
And will I then place the faces of the seen on the circle of those unseen and call my revenge justified?
What I do know is that I hurt -- I hurt for the innocent, and for the unknown faces of those who are left to make sense of all of this, as well as for those who have departed -- those souls that although I have never met, I grieve for as if they were my own.
When I seek to respond to the comment that things will never be the same, I can only hope that, for me, this is true. Because I dread to think that I would stay the same, and would therefore become a willing member of a silent party to this frozen moment in history repeating itself.
I hope that, with the guidance of my God, I will find the courage to search my soul and be willing to do what will be required of me NOT to stay the same ~ and to do all I can to ask the same from all those living souls that I encounter along the way. . .
I had just moved into my dorm at Union Square, my first day of school. My roommate and some Eugene Lang students went to the North Tower to ride the elevators to the restaurant. On our way up the lift car slammed to a halt. We felt blistering heat after a few seconds or so, and afterward gas fumes and water started filling the air. Since the building was still standing, we got the doors open, and we ran. My roommate uses an electric wheelchair and obviously couldn't get down the only stairs down to the mezzanine with a door to the lower stairs outside. In the weirdest way and with strength I didn't know I possessed, I picked her up and shot down the stairs but we couldn't get out. We were trampled.
After that, I found myself outside, lying down on the ground covered with oily dust. I could here a thump. Thump. Thump. Then a very young EMT stabilized me and then ran into the crowd. He was gone...forever. I don't know how I remembered his name, but I later checked up on him and this confirmed my fear. I can still see his face. Thump. Thump. Thump. Bodies hitting the ground behind the chain link fence I was near.
To this day, I am still facing several more surgeries on broken bones that did not heal because I was on a stretcher in Beth Isreal hospital ER and it took 2 days before I was out of triage and in surgery.
Bones heal. Souls not too much. I now struggle with C-ptsd and the stigma that goes along with it. I completed my master's degree, but I left ABD for my Phd in Philosophy. My symptoms got the best of me, so I returned to Orlando to heal. Today I am struggling to write again, but I can't seem to get a grip on it.
Susan, your class put the goat head under my saddle to try again. Much appreciated.
(Writing on the plane back to the bucolic Connecticut hills, so my writing stinks.)
I don't pitty myself, but I have a heard time seeing Trump (now my building is the tallest).
I was at the Omni in New Haven getting ready for our CT AFLCIO convention. It was going to be my first election as Secretary-Treasurer. My phone started going off. Friends checking in to see if I was traveling. Surreal being so close to NYC. Three days of convention followed. Not a single out of town speaker was able to make it in. We raised nearly $100k and held a blood drive. Petty differences and usual convention politics were dissipated and respect, love and community took place. Sister and brother had a more profound meaning. #NeverForget
I was at work at a company in Danbury that was a Navy contractor. A coworker across the aisle announced that a plane had hit the first tower. We all thought 'pilot error' and then the second one hit. Some people had friends and relatives who worked in Lower Manhattan. After a time, we were dismissed, and advised to remove our ID badges before we went anywhere else. I went home and listened to the radio for the next several hours -- I'd recently disconnected Comcast -- and gazed at the clear blue skies with no jet contrails. I never again wore the skirt and blouse I had on that day.
I was working at the YWCA on Broad Street in Hartford (maybe next door to you, Susan?); a co-worker showed up at my door, wide-eyed and ashen, to say that a plane had crashed into one of the towers. Shortly after, when a second one also crashed, we all turned on the TV. I remember all kinds of rumors, some true (like all planes being grounded, and some being ordered to keep circling while they were confirmed as safe. I remember going outside that morning and sitting on the curb outside our building, looking at the clear blue sky and wondering who it could be so beautiful just two hours away from the tragedy. Shortly thereafter, I heard from my daughter, a Watkinson student, that she had gone home with a friend; she was frantic about her Dad, who lived near and sometimes worked in Chicago, as speculation about the "next city" to be hit was swirling. He had been home.
Later we heard about the other two planes (more about PA; not so much about the plane that hit the Pentagon - why not?), but mostly we read the horror stories that kept coming from the dust in NYC - lost killed or missing, those saved by Fate who, for various reasons, had NOT gone to work that day. I know it's not "cool", but I still have questions about that day, including why Building 7 collapsed.
Yes, you were right next door. I went down that Friday and stayed two days, and spent a good part of that first day at a Brooklyn fire house with Al Chaniewski, Courant photographer. From that day, I don't think either of us were ever the same.
Conspiracy theories abound, sadly those spreading such garbage are mostly cultists AND likely had or have little or no sympathy for our brave 1st responders who continue to suffer the effects of the death pits.....
I remember my husband talking about (he is a retired firefighter) how weird it was that people would applaud the fire trucks as they answered routine calls in East Hartford (where he worked). And then he predicted -- correctly -- that the next time a union vote came up, firefighters would go from being gods to goats.
I'll always remember being struck by how clear and blue the sky was as I drove into work that morning. I was in a meeting when the first plane hit. The news started trickling in as people got texts. Eventually the meeting was stopped and we put the conference room TV on and watched the news. I remember the horror and reality of what had happened hitting me later when I saw the largely unused triage stations set up to treat the wounded and realized suddenly that there wouldn't be many wounded survivors. I think everything felt that much more real because we're not that far from NYC and I had once made the touristy trek to the top of the World Trade Center for that unforgettable view of the city. Truly a day we'll never forget. I can't believe it's been almost 25 years.
I was in the cafeteria at Hartford Hospital before heading to my job at the child care center there. It was surreal... the only sound in the room coming from a t.v. showing the news. Once at work, the entire staff needed to find ways to compartmentalize disbelief and grief and concentrate on the little ones in our care. Getting home from work that day, I tried to call a dear friend who works in the city but lines were down and we didn't connect for a couple of days. It was horrible.
The day started with an early appointment mammogram and I only remember that because a year later my doctor exclaimed - "Oh! You had your mammogram on 9-11!" The appointment was before life forever changed and it was nowhere in my memory of that day.
I remember key things that happened after the first tower was hit. I just happened to have the news on at home while doing some deskwork. It was all unclear how that plane could have hit the WTC building. And that beautiful blue sky made it all so unlikely. As you said, our minds at that point were unable to imagine what was unfolding. Then, I saw the second plane hit live on the TV, and we all immediately knew this was an intentional act. As the buildings burned, I kept saying that building is going to collapse. I just knew that it would. As things evolved, the world as I knew it felt so much more scary and I wanted to get my kids. They were young - in elementary school. I, along with many other parents, went to school to pick them up. No one knew what other threats might be ahead. The kids knew something big was happening but didn't know what. My daughter said her teacher and the teacher in next classroom, opened the folding doors between the two rooms and the teachers were whispering between them. I had to figure out how to explain the unexplainable and answer their questions. I kept my son's allergy shot appointment. It was a weird thing to have life move on that day. On some level, I knew I had to let the kids know that they were ok in some concrete way - despite the videos of the planes hitting the towers over and over on the TV in the waiting room. I later found out our friend (the kids' friend's dad) was down there and spent the night in the adjacent Marriott. He was ash covered and had walked across the bridge to escape, but ok. Another friend lost a lot of co-workers at Marsh McLennan. People were checking in on one another because, as you know, people in this area sometimes work in NYC (including my husband whose company had an office in the WTC - he was in CT that day). The skies that started out clear and beautiful, ended up eerily quiet. In the days and weeks that followed, it was a scary time. It was also beautiful how love entered in and people were moved to support one another. And then, when the weeks turned into months, some people began to fall apart in a bad way. Hatred took over in some and they looked for groups to blame. The entire world was forever changed, in so many ways.
I appreciate reading everyone's experiences. It was truly a shared trauma, even if in different forms. Maybe it was the first (not last) large-scale shared trauma for me. I can't think of one before that in my lifetime. Thanks for encouraging sharing.
I was sleeping and awoke to the phone ringing. It was my son who had just started his freshman year at Wagner College in Staten Island, NY. His dorm was 14 stories with a clear view of the towers. He told me about the plane hitting the first tower. I put on my tv in the bedroom and at the same time saw what a beautiful sunny day it was. The two things didn’t seem to go together.
My son had to go but we would be in touch. When the second plane hit I just thought OMG. I remained glued to the news all day. I spoke with my husband and later my daughter when she came home from middle school.
The college closed for a few days but it took a while before anyone could leave campus. Fortunately for us, my son had befriended an upper class man from CT who had a car and brought him home. I was never so glad to have everyone home, especially my son.
We drove by the towers several times before this and hadn’t visited them yet. It was a jarring thought that we’d now see an empty hole there. I think we took the route through NJ more often. My son returned to college but had some PTSD. What a way to begin your college days.
Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023Liked by Susan Campbell
I was on the 16th floor of a high rise in Houston in my office, all alone. A coworker called me to tell me what happened and as we were talking, he watched the second plane hit. I still remember his reaction. After all of us were in the office watching the news on tv, our CEO sent the whole company home. All of our branches were in high rises across the US. We did have a candidate at the airport waiting to board a plane - we told him to go home.
I remember driving home in fear and crying. I spent the day on the couch holding my dog and talking to my dad on the phone. I was so far from home (CT) and so scared.
Thank you, Susan: I was sitting in my family room in West Hartford, checking on the news, of all things, around 8:48 am, to drink my coffee after breakfast, before going to my home office to prepare for class at Hartford Seminary the next day. I barely left the chair the whole day. I tuned in to pictures of the flaming windows of the first tower, and saw on the TV screen the second plane hit (thinking that an investigating helicopter checking on the first hit got too close . . . who knew what was going on . . .?). I listened to local and then national anchors on NBC try to explain what was going on, including Tom Brokaw, who, I think, finally said, when the second tower fell around 10:30 am- "We are under attack," or something to that effect. I checked on my kids who were in school (9th grade and middle school, respectively), and they had been ushered into their school cafeterias to watch the tragedy together. Olga, my wife, came home from her elementary school job early that day. The young kids were sent home to be with their parents, after teachers tried to explain. We sat through dumb-founded and scared watching for clarification - and news about Pennsylvania and DC - the rest of the afternoon and evening. The next evening - Wednesday - I went to class - and sure enough one of my (new) students never made it to work the day before. Part of his company and colleagues were in the Towers, I believe. He was based in Stamford, and would stay there for the foreseeable future; we never did stay in touch after that class. I am not sure if he ever finished his seminary degree. How does one introduce a class on the New Testament in that setting? Somehow I did, but 9/11 was always in the background at Hartford Seminary thereafter. Indeed, we inaugurated a new president a few weeks later (already in the works), and the Seminary's already inter-religious emphasis took on new meaning.
Thank you, Susan: I was sitting in my family room in West Hartford, checking on the news, of all things, around 8:48 am, to drink my coffee after breakfast, before going to my home office to prepare for class at Hartford Seminary the next day. I barely left the chair the whole day. I tuned in to pictures of the flaming windows of the first tower, and saw on the TV screen the second plane hit (thinking that an investigating helicopter checking on the first hit got too close . . . who knew what was going on . . .?). I listened to local and then national anchors on NBC try to explain what was going on, including Tom Brokaw, who, I think, finally said, when the second tower fell around 10:30 am- "We are under attack," or something to that effect. I checked on my kids who were in school (9th grade and middle school, respectively), and they had been ushered into their school cafeterias to watch the tragedy together. Olga, my wife, came home from her elementary school job early that day. The young kids were sent home to be with their parents, after teachers tried to explain. We sat through dumb-founded and scared watching for clarification - and news about Pennsylvania and DC - the rest of the afternoon and evening. The next evening - Wednesday - I went to class - and sure enough one of my (new) students never made it to work the day before. Part of his company and colleagues were in the Towers, I believe. He was based in Stamford, and would stay there for the foreseeable future; we never did stay in touch after that class concluded a few months later. I am not sure if he ever finished his seminary degree. How does one introduce a class on the New Testament in that setting? Somehow I did, but 9/11 was always in the background at Hartford Seminary thereafter. Indeed, we inaugurated a new president a few weeks later (already in the works), and the Seminary's already inter-religious emphasis took on new meaning.
I had an uncharacteristically early dental appointment — cleaning, I imagine, as it was a short visit. Ended up walking north on Main in West Hartford as it was a beautiful pre-autumn day and I was to meet someone at church to go over some project details for the annual "canvass".
Got to the building shortly before 9 and walked in, blithely ignorant of the havoc in progress. The first person I saw was the secretary. She was in tears. Our assistant minister joined us in the office, ashen-faced. She asked me, "Are you OK?" Totally confused, I answered "sure; uh, yes; why... what's going on?" And found out.
Someone rounded up a TV and wheeled it into the program center where, for the next hour (at least) a small group sat horrified, as each succeeding piece of the disaster revealed itself. We held hands, wrapped arms around one another. No work got done.
When I picked myself up and walked back to my car, I had a sense of disorientation and disconnection, as if much of my former landscape was now scrambled and my maps would no longer serve to guide me. I drove home, and hugged my cats.
I was working as an organizer with the Carpenters Union and drove bing up to Hartford. I called the New Haven Hall and signed up to volunteer with our union. I was also an EMT -I and still active in a volunteer service. They had called for volunteers to go in for Stamford as replacement for crews heading to the city.. o knew o was due vacation time so I packed a jump kit and two days of clothes/ uniforms.
I got the call from the mass casualty coordinator that we were released from on call, there very few survivors. The local was notified volunteer operations were being discouraged, we had 200 volunteers in my local alone.!my daughter thought I was going to war and had a hard time with that. In the following weeks our local had a number of people called back by the military. As a union we passed a resolution guaranteed nh medical coverage and retirement time to any active duty service members from our local.
Those fanatics changed our world for the worse. I did have friends on the ground down there and one in particular who worked in identifying (accounting for) remains. I still treasure a hard hat my friend,and fellow EMT, Richard Calder wore at the site cleanup.
I lost family friends, and fellow carpenters that morning in New York. The nation changed to a much darker outlook in my opinion. We seem to be trapped into an existence dictated to us by people who hate us
Oh! I remember that time, when people stopped thinking about this as a rescue operation, and it became recovery. I remember those flapping fliers on public bulletin boards in NYC, where people tried to describe their missing loved ones in great detail. They thought they'd be found. I am so sorry for your loss.
Side note... I used to take the Bridgeport/Port Jefferson Ferry quite a bit. The last time I was on it was 14 years ago. It was a bit unnerving having an armed military escort for the crossing. I spoke to one of the crew about it who told me that the escorts are random. Guess it was our lucky day??? The kids, of course, were eating it up.
I was at a conference in Farmington. The morning sessions were about to start. I don't remember how I heard the news but ended up in the hotel bar with the crowd watching the TV. And then the second plane hit, a collective gasp. I was overwhelmed and went outside, it was such a beautiful day. I was joined by my friend Jaime and we just stood there.
I was teaching in a CT high school. Just after the first plane hit, the entire school went on lockdown. Nobody in or out. No phone calls in or out (this was pre cell phones). Police were in our halls. The teacher whose daughter worked across the street from the Pentagon could not verify her kid's status because of the no calls. The sisters whose dad worked in one of the towers sat in the office sobbing because they were not allowed to call their mom to see if their dad was alive. An administrator ran through the halls shouting code numbers into their walkie-talkie. Nobody in authority would tell us what was going on. We were all terrified, and the trauma to the students was exceptional. At the last bell, everybody was finally allowed to leave the building. The next day those in charge deigned to let staff know that a senior had been threatened by her boyfriend, and that was the cause of all the drama. She sat in my classroom for one period, and nobody informed me or her other teachers of any danger to this student or to us. We rolled TV's into some classrooms to watch the horror in NYC and wonder if that had some bearing on what was happening in our school. Nobody ever apologized for what they did to us on that day. I made a sign for each teachers' workroom: "To Lie is to Withhold the Truth from Those Who Have a Right to It." I got in trouble.
We were sleeping in a camper in Cameron, Montana. This guy we were visiting had no running water or electricity, but he did have a phone for some reason. His girlfriend called from Helena asking us if we had heard what happened in New York (it was just after 8 am where we were). Well, we hadn't, of course, so she told us. With no TV, we all crammed into my friend's little Toyota pickup truck, listening to the radio. My friend was supposed to fly back to CT that day, but of course all flights were cancelled. I remember my friend calling Northwest Airlines and no one was even picking up, just a recording saying "All flights are cancelled, sorry we can't help you." Click. I remember going into Yellowstone and just kind of wandering around, very surreal. Everyone was stuck where they were. At Old Faithful Lodge with the best scenery in the West right outside, everyone was in the bar glued to the TV. My friend and I finally got a room in West Yellowstone just outside of the park, and for pretty much the first time that day we saw the imagees that everyone else had been seeing. At 11:00 pm, just the eerie images against the darkness of all the millions of papers still floating around.
Almost immediately in the next week pro-America anti-Middle East signs were popping up all over Montana as we drove around, killing time until we could get my friend on a flight. The owner of the little Toyota truck offered to have us drive it back East, sell it and send him the money. I was up for the adventure, but my friend was like, "No way am I spending a week with you on the road in that little truck!" It was about a week before we could get her home, and in those initial moments when war or who-knows-what seemed imminent, I wondered if I should just stay in Montana where it felt safer.
I was in the Air Force and in Northern Virginia, working in a headquarters job that would have been in the Pentagon had they not been in the midst of renovating the Pentagon and moved various divisions to nearby Rosslyn until the renovations were complete. When the plane hit the Pentagon, the evacuated the building to an empty lot across the street. Once we were all there, someone realized that, for someone looking for military targets, we were now a great big blue target. So they ordered us back into the buildiing where every general dismissed his unit for the day.
I took the metro into DC because I didn't know where else to go. I would ordinarily have had class that evening (I was working on my law degree) and I couldn't take the Metro home because the trains weren't running past the Pentagon, which is the route my train usually took. As I exited the metro at Union Station, someone was chaining the gates shut. I remember people wandering aimlessly on the street. Class was canceled, but the law school building was open so I used a pay phone to call a friend in town (all cell service was down) and stayed with her for a few hours until the trains were running again.
The next weekend, I escorted contractors to the roof of the Pentagon to survey the damage. You could see the char marks three rings in toward the center of the building.
The day our Saudi “friends” attacked I was playing in the American Water Works golf outing at Tunxis Plantation in Farmington as the guest of some engineers. On one tee the hostesses were very noisily speaking. As it turns out they were discussing the attack. At that point everything changed. Many engineers had friends and contacts in the towers, we played out our round in hurried silence then I raced home where all eyes were glued to the tube. Let us NEVER forget and always remember how McConnell and Ryan held up funding for first responders, who to this day continue to suffer and die from their efforts that fateful day and beyond!
And God bless Jon Stewart. He's been relentless.
He did a great job outing the WORST responders!
I don’t think anyone has fought harder for 9/11 first responders - especially in Washington- than Jon Stewart.
Yes, bless Jon.
I had taken the day off to have some work done at my condo. As per my routine, I had my butt parked on the floor in front of my coffee table with my coffee, having my morning smoke (don't do that gross stuff anymore) with the Hartford Courant spread out in front of me, and the Today Show on the TV. I recall them reporting about an incident at one of the towers (fire), and while watching, I saw the second plane hit live time. To say I was stunned is an understatement. The handyman and his partner showed up and had no clue what was going on as they were listening the CD's. We spent about 45 minutes standing in front of the TV slackjawed. They went to go do their thing, and my phone ringing of the hook compliments of my sister who was freaked about family whose jobs had them in that area of the city. Everyone was located safe. A friend of mine that lived in Stratford and worked in CT, arrived at Grand Central, saw the chaos and got on the next train home. Side note: I had also taken the day off when the plane crashed a couple of weeks later in The Rockaways (fuel tank issue). My job told me that I couldn't take any more days off due to tragedies happening on those days. WABC out of NY got a lot of my listening time that whole month. This tragedy actually compelled my cousin and her husband to get married. They had been together for 20 years, but never married. October 13, 2001 they did the deed.
Interesting how that event changed the trajectory of people's lives, even if we had no relatives or friends who were hurt or killed. I can just imagine you three -- strangers -- standing watching the television together.
It was seriously messed up. All of my cousins are Long Islanders. Two of them are volunteer firefighters. One of them was living in Florida when all this went down. He sought out his boss and told him he was heading home, got in his truck and headed north with just the clothes he was wearing. His Long Island fire company was on the scene searching, met up with them, and started searching. He lost his childhood best friend in one of the towers.
I'm so sorry for his loss. And that is the firefighter's instinct, isn't it? Just get in the truck and drive to the disaster.
I was taking a friend to the bank, when a garbage truck pulled into my car. We were in the parking lot waiting for the police, when my friend called the bank to say we were late... the bank person told Gail what had happened. So the trash collectors, Gail and I found out in a parking lot and we stood together and held hands as we waited for the cops. There was nothing TO say in the shock.
Held hands. That's beautiful.
Was at work in Windsor, CT. A coworker came by my desk and said, "A small plane crashed into the World Trade Center". I felt my eyes go wide. I got up from my desk and headed to the lobby of the building I worked in. A financial firm that had part of the building had a TV in the lobby. The TV showed the NYC skyline with smoke coming from the right side of the picture. I called my wife and told her to find a news station. She did - and yelled "OH MY GOD" into the phone just as a second plane hit the other tower. The rest of the day was a blur of work and news bulletins. When I got home, my wife and kids were upset. We had to turn off the TV for a bit for everyone to calm down.
We actually hung the American flag up on our porch, not in a nationalistic way, but it felt right at the time.
I slept through it
I worked nights
During the summer I would usually get up around 10 AM , but when school would start I would sleep until noon
On that day I actually slept until 1 PM
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I turned on the tv
My ex came home around 2:30 and she decided that it would be a good time to have a talk about our relationship because she thought she would have my undivided attention
WRONG
I started work at 3:30 PM and when I got there I was told that there was going to be a meeting about the event ( they had one earlier for the first shift)
They put a tv in the cafeteria for viewing eduring the shift so we could keep up with what was happening
It seemed like a bad dream
Wow. You woke up to armageddon. And a chat about your relationship. I'm not sure which is worse, she said, sweetly.
I was working as a "Loaned-Executive" at the United Way. I was sitting in an office at the top of City Place in a meeting that (obviously) ended quickly. Two things I remember in the aftermath: 1) my youngest child was eleven and she asked if it was the end of the world; 2) many of my colleagues immediately began beating war-drums. When I hung a quote from Dr. MLK on my door, some of them stopped speaking to me.
That was the perfect time to hang an MLK quote up. My own paper published a rare mid-day edition that had "WAR" in a million-point font.
I was at the barn at a riding lesson with my horse Jazzy who has since passed. The barn owner said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Somewhat like you, I could only imagine perhaps a small private plane had hit through pilot error. As the news trickled it, I became terrified for my in-laws who I knew were flying that morning. By 11 am feared my husband would be deployed again to go to war. He was.
Your husband returned OK? Your in-laws were OK?
He returned with some trauma and other illnesses which manifested years later. But not in a body bag, like many others.
I am sorry.
Thank you. ❤️
It was my day off and, as usual in those days, I took a nice long walk with Sydney ( dog) and we both enjoyed that spectacular September morning…cloudless skies and cool temperatures. Got home just before 9am.
Then it all changed.
Didn't it? I remember thinking what a beautiful day (as Nancy said) for such a horrible thing to happen.
I was at work in Hartford. It was a rare day in the office. I was usually on the road and frequently in the southwest part of the state but not that day. A guy who worked with me got a call from home and told me. Soon enough we were all gathered in a conference room watching it on TV in time to see the towers collapse. At that point we were sent home. I knew that a friend had a meeting that morning at St. Vincent’s Hospital in lower Manhattan, which btw ended up being a major triage center. I started dialing her cell which was pointless at the time, finally hearing from her that evening as she made it to Montauk, on the end of Long Island, to take the ferry to New London, the only way she could get back to Connecticut.
I posted the link to this on the old Dating Jesus site when David Bowie died but it’s appropriate today. The video starts with Bowie singing over film clips and moves to him onstage opening the Concert for New York City. It’s one of the more moving tributes.
https://retronewser.com/2021/10/20/david-bowie-opens-the-concert-for-new-york-city-to-benefit-victims-of-september-11-attacks/
Oh! I remember this. Damnation.
The piece below was written by my cousin a day or so after that fateful day. Yearly he sends it out on this day. Yearly I read It.
From the desk of
Bill Green
Never Be The Same
Dear friends. . .
Although I have thought long and hard on the issue at hand (that being the terrible tragedy that occurred last Tuesday (9/11/2001), and its impact on me, I realize that a response leaves me vulnerable to the judgment of others.
Yet, with the constant barrage from so many who seem to share a singular voice of rage, hatred, and revenge, I, too, feel that it is necessary for this one voice to be heard as well.
As deeply saddened as I am by last Tuesday's tragedy, a sadness that seems to deepen with each passing day, I struggle with the underlying message that has surfaced from the media ever since – that message being that this country will never be the same as a result of last Tuesday's unimaginable act of violence and subsequent grief that has followed.
Whereas it is undeniably true that, for me, things will never be the same, the question that keeps rattling around in my brain, and from that deep place of sadness in my heart, is what, then, for me will be different?
What am I willing to change?
Will I look more deeply than ever to realize the many privileges of living in such a land as America as something that the greater portions of the world can only imagine?
Will I therefore look upon my brethren – African-American, Arab-American, Asian-American, European-American, Jewish-American, Mexican-American, Native-American – Christian, Buddhist, Hebrew, Muslim – and all the many other cultures, races, and religions, far too many to name, as equal parts of a greater whole called humankind?
Or, will I seek to justify hatred, when loving forgiveness demands too much from my finite soul? Will I ask what can be done to heal this gaping wound inflicted upon my country – a country that has oft times invisibilized me – as opposed to asking what must be done to inflict more wounds, while knowing fully well that my world as I know it is already so overwhelmed with a grief that will never heal?
Will I seek Divine guidance as I search the innermost regions of my vulnerable heart to try and try to understand the impossible, as well as the unforgivable? Or will I justify vengeance, blindly, under the guise of God?
Will I take it upon myself to recall the devastation's dealt out by my country during my brief lifetime – the atom bomb, Viet Nam, social injustice and blatant racism – with indifference? Or will I take it upon myself to confront the limitations of a human heart such as mine that will be tempted to say, “Oh, well, that's different!”. . . ?
Will I love differently that which I don't understand? Or will I allow my cultural ignorance's to remain my personal justifications to continue to treat those unlike myself as if they don't exist?
Will I become an advocate for harmony in diversity? Or will I once again succumb to the hollow cry of, America, love it or leave it!! . . . ?
Will I teach my children to love in ways that I never thought of before last Tuesday? Or will I self-justifiably condemn a whole people for the acts of a faceless circle of hatred?
And will I then place the faces of the seen on the circle of those unseen and call my revenge justified?
What I do know is that I hurt -- I hurt for the innocent, and for the unknown faces of those who are left to make sense of all of this, as well as for those who have departed -- those souls that although I have never met, I grieve for as if they were my own.
When I seek to respond to the comment that things will never be the same, I can only hope that, for me, this is true. Because I dread to think that I would stay the same, and would therefore become a willing member of a silent party to this frozen moment in history repeating itself.
I hope that, with the guidance of my God, I will find the courage to search my soul and be willing to do what will be required of me NOT to stay the same ~ and to do all I can to ask the same from all those living souls that I encounter along the way. . .
Peace.
Bill
Mandy Patinkin; “You've Got to be Carefully Taught; Children Will Listen”.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=owxRpV7l8Dc&pp=ygUubWFuZHkgcGF0aW5raW4geW91IGhhdmUgdG8gYmUgY2FyZWZ1bGx5IHRhdWdodA%3D%3D
This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.
I had just moved into my dorm at Union Square, my first day of school. My roommate and some Eugene Lang students went to the North Tower to ride the elevators to the restaurant. On our way up the lift car slammed to a halt. We felt blistering heat after a few seconds or so, and afterward gas fumes and water started filling the air. Since the building was still standing, we got the doors open, and we ran. My roommate uses an electric wheelchair and obviously couldn't get down the only stairs down to the mezzanine with a door to the lower stairs outside. In the weirdest way and with strength I didn't know I possessed, I picked her up and shot down the stairs but we couldn't get out. We were trampled.
After that, I found myself outside, lying down on the ground covered with oily dust. I could here a thump. Thump. Thump. Then a very young EMT stabilized me and then ran into the crowd. He was gone...forever. I don't know how I remembered his name, but I later checked up on him and this confirmed my fear. I can still see his face. Thump. Thump. Thump. Bodies hitting the ground behind the chain link fence I was near.
To this day, I am still facing several more surgeries on broken bones that did not heal because I was on a stretcher in Beth Isreal hospital ER and it took 2 days before I was out of triage and in surgery.
Bones heal. Souls not too much. I now struggle with C-ptsd and the stigma that goes along with it. I completed my master's degree, but I left ABD for my Phd in Philosophy. My symptoms got the best of me, so I returned to Orlando to heal. Today I am struggling to write again, but I can't seem to get a grip on it.
Susan, your class put the goat head under my saddle to try again. Much appreciated.
(Writing on the plane back to the bucolic Connecticut hills, so my writing stinks.)
I don't pitty myself, but I have a heard time seeing Trump (now my building is the tallest).
Oh, Cyndi. I love you.
Thanks, professor!
I'm so sorry you went through that.
I thank you sincerely.
I am so sorry.
Much thanks and peace to you.
I think your written testimony while chilling is VERY well written, carry on never give up your fight. Godspeed.
Aw, thanks, Rich!. Your encouragement feels sweet and will help me peck out a few keys, for true.
I was at the Omni in New Haven getting ready for our CT AFLCIO convention. It was going to be my first election as Secretary-Treasurer. My phone started going off. Friends checking in to see if I was traveling. Surreal being so close to NYC. Three days of convention followed. Not a single out of town speaker was able to make it in. We raised nearly $100k and held a blood drive. Petty differences and usual convention politics were dissipated and respect, love and community took place. Sister and brother had a more profound meaning. #NeverForget
Never
I was at work at a company in Danbury that was a Navy contractor. A coworker across the aisle announced that a plane had hit the first tower. We all thought 'pilot error' and then the second one hit. Some people had friends and relatives who worked in Lower Manhattan. After a time, we were dismissed, and advised to remove our ID badges before we went anywhere else. I went home and listened to the radio for the next several hours -- I'd recently disconnected Comcast -- and gazed at the clear blue skies with no jet contrails. I never again wore the skirt and blouse I had on that day.
Isn't that an interesting response? The clothes were too much of a reminder?
I was working at the YWCA on Broad Street in Hartford (maybe next door to you, Susan?); a co-worker showed up at my door, wide-eyed and ashen, to say that a plane had crashed into one of the towers. Shortly after, when a second one also crashed, we all turned on the TV. I remember all kinds of rumors, some true (like all planes being grounded, and some being ordered to keep circling while they were confirmed as safe. I remember going outside that morning and sitting on the curb outside our building, looking at the clear blue sky and wondering who it could be so beautiful just two hours away from the tragedy. Shortly thereafter, I heard from my daughter, a Watkinson student, that she had gone home with a friend; she was frantic about her Dad, who lived near and sometimes worked in Chicago, as speculation about the "next city" to be hit was swirling. He had been home.
Later we heard about the other two planes (more about PA; not so much about the plane that hit the Pentagon - why not?), but mostly we read the horror stories that kept coming from the dust in NYC - lost killed or missing, those saved by Fate who, for various reasons, had NOT gone to work that day. I know it's not "cool", but I still have questions about that day, including why Building 7 collapsed.
Yes, you were right next door. I went down that Friday and stayed two days, and spent a good part of that first day at a Brooklyn fire house with Al Chaniewski, Courant photographer. From that day, I don't think either of us were ever the same.
Conspiracy theories abound, sadly those spreading such garbage are mostly cultists AND likely had or have little or no sympathy for our brave 1st responders who continue to suffer the effects of the death pits.....
I remember my husband talking about (he is a retired firefighter) how weird it was that people would applaud the fire trucks as they answered routine calls in East Hartford (where he worked). And then he predicted -- correctly -- that the next time a union vote came up, firefighters would go from being gods to goats.
I'll always remember being struck by how clear and blue the sky was as I drove into work that morning. I was in a meeting when the first plane hit. The news started trickling in as people got texts. Eventually the meeting was stopped and we put the conference room TV on and watched the news. I remember the horror and reality of what had happened hitting me later when I saw the largely unused triage stations set up to treat the wounded and realized suddenly that there wouldn't be many wounded survivors. I think everything felt that much more real because we're not that far from NYC and I had once made the touristy trek to the top of the World Trade Center for that unforgettable view of the city. Truly a day we'll never forget. I can't believe it's been almost 25 years.
I was in the cafeteria at Hartford Hospital before heading to my job at the child care center there. It was surreal... the only sound in the room coming from a t.v. showing the news. Once at work, the entire staff needed to find ways to compartmentalize disbelief and grief and concentrate on the little ones in our care. Getting home from work that day, I tried to call a dear friend who works in the city but lines were down and we didn't connect for a couple of days. It was horrible.
That was horrible, not knowing.
The day started with an early appointment mammogram and I only remember that because a year later my doctor exclaimed - "Oh! You had your mammogram on 9-11!" The appointment was before life forever changed and it was nowhere in my memory of that day.
I remember key things that happened after the first tower was hit. I just happened to have the news on at home while doing some deskwork. It was all unclear how that plane could have hit the WTC building. And that beautiful blue sky made it all so unlikely. As you said, our minds at that point were unable to imagine what was unfolding. Then, I saw the second plane hit live on the TV, and we all immediately knew this was an intentional act. As the buildings burned, I kept saying that building is going to collapse. I just knew that it would. As things evolved, the world as I knew it felt so much more scary and I wanted to get my kids. They were young - in elementary school. I, along with many other parents, went to school to pick them up. No one knew what other threats might be ahead. The kids knew something big was happening but didn't know what. My daughter said her teacher and the teacher in next classroom, opened the folding doors between the two rooms and the teachers were whispering between them. I had to figure out how to explain the unexplainable and answer their questions. I kept my son's allergy shot appointment. It was a weird thing to have life move on that day. On some level, I knew I had to let the kids know that they were ok in some concrete way - despite the videos of the planes hitting the towers over and over on the TV in the waiting room. I later found out our friend (the kids' friend's dad) was down there and spent the night in the adjacent Marriott. He was ash covered and had walked across the bridge to escape, but ok. Another friend lost a lot of co-workers at Marsh McLennan. People were checking in on one another because, as you know, people in this area sometimes work in NYC (including my husband whose company had an office in the WTC - he was in CT that day). The skies that started out clear and beautiful, ended up eerily quiet. In the days and weeks that followed, it was a scary time. It was also beautiful how love entered in and people were moved to support one another. And then, when the weeks turned into months, some people began to fall apart in a bad way. Hatred took over in some and they looked for groups to blame. The entire world was forever changed, in so many ways.
This reminds me of things If actually forgotten — or thought I had.
I appreciate reading everyone's experiences. It was truly a shared trauma, even if in different forms. Maybe it was the first (not last) large-scale shared trauma for me. I can't think of one before that in my lifetime. Thanks for encouraging sharing.
Indeed
I was sleeping and awoke to the phone ringing. It was my son who had just started his freshman year at Wagner College in Staten Island, NY. His dorm was 14 stories with a clear view of the towers. He told me about the plane hitting the first tower. I put on my tv in the bedroom and at the same time saw what a beautiful sunny day it was. The two things didn’t seem to go together.
My son had to go but we would be in touch. When the second plane hit I just thought OMG. I remained glued to the news all day. I spoke with my husband and later my daughter when she came home from middle school.
The college closed for a few days but it took a while before anyone could leave campus. Fortunately for us, my son had befriended an upper class man from CT who had a car and brought him home. I was never so glad to have everyone home, especially my son.
We drove by the towers several times before this and hadn’t visited them yet. It was a jarring thought that we’d now see an empty hole there. I think we took the route through NJ more often. My son returned to college but had some PTSD. What a way to begin your college days.
Wow. I cannot imagine at that tender age witnessing that. You don't have context. You don't have experience.
Exactly. And he is a person that stresses over change.
I was on the 16th floor of a high rise in Houston in my office, all alone. A coworker called me to tell me what happened and as we were talking, he watched the second plane hit. I still remember his reaction. After all of us were in the office watching the news on tv, our CEO sent the whole company home. All of our branches were in high rises across the US. We did have a candidate at the airport waiting to board a plane - we told him to go home.
I remember driving home in fear and crying. I spent the day on the couch holding my dog and talking to my dad on the phone. I was so far from home (CT) and so scared.
That must have been ridiculously hard, being so far from home.
About the only thing I remember hearing her say was you’re not listening to me
No kidding honey
Lord.
Thank you, Susan: I was sitting in my family room in West Hartford, checking on the news, of all things, around 8:48 am, to drink my coffee after breakfast, before going to my home office to prepare for class at Hartford Seminary the next day. I barely left the chair the whole day. I tuned in to pictures of the flaming windows of the first tower, and saw on the TV screen the second plane hit (thinking that an investigating helicopter checking on the first hit got too close . . . who knew what was going on . . .?). I listened to local and then national anchors on NBC try to explain what was going on, including Tom Brokaw, who, I think, finally said, when the second tower fell around 10:30 am- "We are under attack," or something to that effect. I checked on my kids who were in school (9th grade and middle school, respectively), and they had been ushered into their school cafeterias to watch the tragedy together. Olga, my wife, came home from her elementary school job early that day. The young kids were sent home to be with their parents, after teachers tried to explain. We sat through dumb-founded and scared watching for clarification - and news about Pennsylvania and DC - the rest of the afternoon and evening. The next evening - Wednesday - I went to class - and sure enough one of my (new) students never made it to work the day before. Part of his company and colleagues were in the Towers, I believe. He was based in Stamford, and would stay there for the foreseeable future; we never did stay in touch after that class. I am not sure if he ever finished his seminary degree. How does one introduce a class on the New Testament in that setting? Somehow I did, but 9/11 was always in the background at Hartford Seminary thereafter. Indeed, we inaugurated a new president a few weeks later (already in the works), and the Seminary's already inter-religious emphasis took on new meaning.
It certainly did take on a new meaning. My time there preceded this and it helped me prepare against the knee-jerk hate we all heard.
Thank you, Susan: I was sitting in my family room in West Hartford, checking on the news, of all things, around 8:48 am, to drink my coffee after breakfast, before going to my home office to prepare for class at Hartford Seminary the next day. I barely left the chair the whole day. I tuned in to pictures of the flaming windows of the first tower, and saw on the TV screen the second plane hit (thinking that an investigating helicopter checking on the first hit got too close . . . who knew what was going on . . .?). I listened to local and then national anchors on NBC try to explain what was going on, including Tom Brokaw, who, I think, finally said, when the second tower fell around 10:30 am- "We are under attack," or something to that effect. I checked on my kids who were in school (9th grade and middle school, respectively), and they had been ushered into their school cafeterias to watch the tragedy together. Olga, my wife, came home from her elementary school job early that day. The young kids were sent home to be with their parents, after teachers tried to explain. We sat through dumb-founded and scared watching for clarification - and news about Pennsylvania and DC - the rest of the afternoon and evening. The next evening - Wednesday - I went to class - and sure enough one of my (new) students never made it to work the day before. Part of his company and colleagues were in the Towers, I believe. He was based in Stamford, and would stay there for the foreseeable future; we never did stay in touch after that class concluded a few months later. I am not sure if he ever finished his seminary degree. How does one introduce a class on the New Testament in that setting? Somehow I did, but 9/11 was always in the background at Hartford Seminary thereafter. Indeed, we inaugurated a new president a few weeks later (already in the works), and the Seminary's already inter-religious emphasis took on new meaning.
I had an uncharacteristically early dental appointment — cleaning, I imagine, as it was a short visit. Ended up walking north on Main in West Hartford as it was a beautiful pre-autumn day and I was to meet someone at church to go over some project details for the annual "canvass".
Got to the building shortly before 9 and walked in, blithely ignorant of the havoc in progress. The first person I saw was the secretary. She was in tears. Our assistant minister joined us in the office, ashen-faced. She asked me, "Are you OK?" Totally confused, I answered "sure; uh, yes; why... what's going on?" And found out.
Someone rounded up a TV and wheeled it into the program center where, for the next hour (at least) a small group sat horrified, as each succeeding piece of the disaster revealed itself. We held hands, wrapped arms around one another. No work got done.
When I picked myself up and walked back to my car, I had a sense of disorientation and disconnection, as if much of my former landscape was now scrambled and my maps would no longer serve to guide me. I drove home, and hugged my cats.
I got home late that night (understandably so) and when I walked I hugged everyone and everything that would allow it.
I was working as an organizer with the Carpenters Union and drove bing up to Hartford. I called the New Haven Hall and signed up to volunteer with our union. I was also an EMT -I and still active in a volunteer service. They had called for volunteers to go in for Stamford as replacement for crews heading to the city.. o knew o was due vacation time so I packed a jump kit and two days of clothes/ uniforms.
I got the call from the mass casualty coordinator that we were released from on call, there very few survivors. The local was notified volunteer operations were being discouraged, we had 200 volunteers in my local alone.!my daughter thought I was going to war and had a hard time with that. In the following weeks our local had a number of people called back by the military. As a union we passed a resolution guaranteed nh medical coverage and retirement time to any active duty service members from our local.
Those fanatics changed our world for the worse. I did have friends on the ground down there and one in particular who worked in identifying (accounting for) remains. I still treasure a hard hat my friend,and fellow EMT, Richard Calder wore at the site cleanup.
I lost family friends, and fellow carpenters that morning in New York. The nation changed to a much darker outlook in my opinion. We seem to be trapped into an existence dictated to us by people who hate us
Oh! I remember that time, when people stopped thinking about this as a rescue operation, and it became recovery. I remember those flapping fliers on public bulletin boards in NYC, where people tried to describe their missing loved ones in great detail. They thought they'd be found. I am so sorry for your loss.
Thanks Susan
Union Square.
Side note... I used to take the Bridgeport/Port Jefferson Ferry quite a bit. The last time I was on it was 14 years ago. It was a bit unnerving having an armed military escort for the crossing. I spoke to one of the crew about it who told me that the escorts are random. Guess it was our lucky day??? The kids, of course, were eating it up.
I was at good old 285 Broad Street and remember the building coming alive as the reality of what happened unfolded
I was at a conference in Farmington. The morning sessions were about to start. I don't remember how I heard the news but ended up in the hotel bar with the crowd watching the TV. And then the second plane hit, a collective gasp. I was overwhelmed and went outside, it was such a beautiful day. I was joined by my friend Jaime and we just stood there.
There really wasn't much else to do, was there? Just stand there and let it wash over.
I was teaching in a CT high school. Just after the first plane hit, the entire school went on lockdown. Nobody in or out. No phone calls in or out (this was pre cell phones). Police were in our halls. The teacher whose daughter worked across the street from the Pentagon could not verify her kid's status because of the no calls. The sisters whose dad worked in one of the towers sat in the office sobbing because they were not allowed to call their mom to see if their dad was alive. An administrator ran through the halls shouting code numbers into their walkie-talkie. Nobody in authority would tell us what was going on. We were all terrified, and the trauma to the students was exceptional. At the last bell, everybody was finally allowed to leave the building. The next day those in charge deigned to let staff know that a senior had been threatened by her boyfriend, and that was the cause of all the drama. She sat in my classroom for one period, and nobody informed me or her other teachers of any danger to this student or to us. We rolled TV's into some classrooms to watch the horror in NYC and wonder if that had some bearing on what was happening in our school. Nobody ever apologized for what they did to us on that day. I made a sign for each teachers' workroom: "To Lie is to Withhold the Truth from Those Who Have a Right to It." I got in trouble.
We were sleeping in a camper in Cameron, Montana. This guy we were visiting had no running water or electricity, but he did have a phone for some reason. His girlfriend called from Helena asking us if we had heard what happened in New York (it was just after 8 am where we were). Well, we hadn't, of course, so she told us. With no TV, we all crammed into my friend's little Toyota pickup truck, listening to the radio. My friend was supposed to fly back to CT that day, but of course all flights were cancelled. I remember my friend calling Northwest Airlines and no one was even picking up, just a recording saying "All flights are cancelled, sorry we can't help you." Click. I remember going into Yellowstone and just kind of wandering around, very surreal. Everyone was stuck where they were. At Old Faithful Lodge with the best scenery in the West right outside, everyone was in the bar glued to the TV. My friend and I finally got a room in West Yellowstone just outside of the park, and for pretty much the first time that day we saw the imagees that everyone else had been seeing. At 11:00 pm, just the eerie images against the darkness of all the millions of papers still floating around.
Almost immediately in the next week pro-America anti-Middle East signs were popping up all over Montana as we drove around, killing time until we could get my friend on a flight. The owner of the little Toyota truck offered to have us drive it back East, sell it and send him the money. I was up for the adventure, but my friend was like, "No way am I spending a week with you on the road in that little truck!" It was about a week before we could get her home, and in those initial moments when war or who-knows-what seemed imminent, I wondered if I should just stay in Montana where it felt safer.
I was in the Air Force and in Northern Virginia, working in a headquarters job that would have been in the Pentagon had they not been in the midst of renovating the Pentagon and moved various divisions to nearby Rosslyn until the renovations were complete. When the plane hit the Pentagon, the evacuated the building to an empty lot across the street. Once we were all there, someone realized that, for someone looking for military targets, we were now a great big blue target. So they ordered us back into the buildiing where every general dismissed his unit for the day.
I took the metro into DC because I didn't know where else to go. I would ordinarily have had class that evening (I was working on my law degree) and I couldn't take the Metro home because the trains weren't running past the Pentagon, which is the route my train usually took. As I exited the metro at Union Station, someone was chaining the gates shut. I remember people wandering aimlessly on the street. Class was canceled, but the law school building was open so I used a pay phone to call a friend in town (all cell service was down) and stayed with her for a few hours until the trains were running again.
The next weekend, I escorted contractors to the roof of the Pentagon to survey the damage. You could see the char marks three rings in toward the center of the building.