Savannah-area readers share their memories of 9/11
I began my day much as I had any other day with prayer and the early morning news. I decided to go the polls to vote as soon as they opened and then go to work. The day was clear and beautiful; the cerulean sky was covered with fluffy, white clouds.
I voted, went back home and left for work because I was scheduled for a training class that day.
I walked slowly to the subway station, and just as I reached the corner to go downstairs, I realized I had not repeated my daily mantra. I never leave home without asking God to send my angels to lead, guide and protect me throughout the day and to bring me safely home at the end of the day. It was 7:30 a.m., one hour earlier than I usually left home.
I exited at the Chambers Street station, started for the post office to mail birthday gifts, but decided to wait until lunchtime. After stopping by the cafeteria for my daily cup of coffee, I made it to the office at about
8:20 a.m. with 40 minutes to relax before class.
Since I had to cross over and use two separate elevator banks to get up to my class (on either the 84th or 86th floor), I went to the elevator on my floor (65 North), around three times, only to change my mind for various reasons and get off before the doors fully closed. I went back to my desk, sat down, logged onto my computer and listened to my voice mail messages while waiting for it to boot up. It was now 8:40 a.m. Five more minutes would change my life.
At 8:45 a.m., disaster struck. There was a thunderous sound, followed by a jolt that threw my chair across my office space. As I struggled to stand, everything in my office was moving around uncontrollably. I could hear the ceiling coming down above me. One of the managers yelled for everyone to get out of the building, so I grabbed my purse and turned to leave. He pulled me from my office just as a large file cabinet slid toward me, and I ran for the stairs scared and praying but not really knowing what for. I had no idea what had happened.
With no air conditioning, the heat and dust in the stairwell began to make my breathing irregular. Firemen passed on the way upstairs, urging everyone to keep moving and stay to the right of the stairs to allow them room to pass. No one would tell us what had happened; they just urged us on.
The woman in front of me turned abruptly and tried to go back up. She wanted to get her purse. I turned her back around, held her hand and told her to keep walking. I assured her that she could come back to get it later.
As the crowd wove its way down, I became extremely tired and developed devastating pain in my right leg. I kept reciting every prayer I knew, every Psalm I could think of and all the Bible verses my mind could summon just to keep moving. Everyone was sweating profusely and becoming dehydrated and thirsty. One of the firemen broke the glass on a couple of vending machines so we could take the water and juice.
After finally reaching the 23rd floor, the hallway suddenly became filled with smoke and dust. We were instructed to go back up to the 25th floor to find another stairwell. Although we weren’t aware, Tower 2 had just been attacked, exploding the windows in Tower 1, which was the cause of the extra smoke and debris.
As I arrived at the fifth floor, the lights went out. I could hear water flowing down the stairwell but couldn’t see anything before me. Someone yelled for us to turn and go back up. People began to panic and cry. One woman kept saying, “We’re going to die,” over and over again. I told her that angels were protecting me, I was not going to die, and if she wanted to live, she should come with me because I was not only going to get out of that building; I was going home.
I stood there for a while watching people cry and trying to stay strong for those that were starting to lose it, praying to God to keep me from losing my faith in the melee. I sent a prayer to God that we needed an angel to guide us and we needed him right now! Almost immediately, a fireman appeared with flashlights, told us to follow him and led us down to the plaza level. I looked around to say thanks, but he was gone as quickly as he came. I vaguely remember wondering how he had disappeared so quickly, but thanked God for his sending him to help us in our need. I left the building as fast as possible, but I was so tired I could hardly move. My coworkers encouraged me to keep going, so I did.
The scene I encountered as I stepped outside was horrific. I could not comprehend what could have happened to make the streets look like that. Cars and trucks overturned and buried in dust. Everything was destroyed. It was as if someone or something had erased all the colors from the Earth. There was no color, just dull gray, dust covering everything and everyone.
I sat on the outside of a fire truck for a few minutes, trying to catch my breath. As I sat there, I heard someone tell me to get up and keep going. Looking around and seeing no one, I continued to sit. About a minute later, I heard the voice again, louder this time, and it was yelling at me to move now! I hurried down Church Street, and as reached the corner of Chambers Street, firemen started screaming for everyone to run.
I heard this crunching noise; turned and watched Tower 2 crumble. A young man and his girlfriend were with me and he pushed us down into the subway entrance on the stairs and lay on top of us to try to protect us as much as he could from the dust and debris that was flying around us.
Time stood still, sound stopped, and everything seemed to disappear in slow motion. Suddenly, people started moving faster, running, mouths opened as if they were screaming, but I didn’t hear any sound coming from them. I had lost sight of the two young people I was with. With no sense of direction, I felt lost and alone.
Sound rushed back in and I heard someone scream, “Oh, my God!” I looked back and Tower 1, the place where I had spent most of my days for the past eight years, where my friends and work family and I shared one another’s joys and sorrows, came down. In one big swoosh, it took its last breath. It seemed to be deathly quiet for a few minutes; then the noise began again.
What was happening and why? Why was someone attacking us? What happened to the innocent babies that were kept in the day care in Tower 5? What happened to my friends? What’s going to happen next and are they coming back again? My mind was in turmoil, with no answers in sight.
I was so tired and alone, but I knew had to keep moving. I couldn’t cry, couldn’t feel anything, I was just tired and numb. Everyone around me seemed to be with someone, but I was all alone. That’s all I could feel, the sense of being alone.
I kept walking and praying, “God, please don’t let my mother or my family see this.” I knew I had to call them to reassure them that I was OK, but no phones were working and I was still too far from home.
I had made it to Canal Street. I saw a clock and thought, “That clock can’t be right! It can’t be 10 o’clock. It has to be later than that. Is it really just 10 o’clock? Oh Lord, please help me. Where is everyone? I know I have to keep moving.” I couldn’t stop the wild thoughts rambling through my mind.
I wandered aimlessly toward the Manhattan Bridge, and just as I reached it, an SUV stopped next to me. I asked for a ride, and the driver took me to the Brooklyn side of the bridge and I continued my walk home, distraught, tired and still alone.
After reaching Brooklyn, I rejoined the walking masses headed toward Fulton Street and home. Water was being offered, chairs were set out for anyone to take a few minutes of rest. Help was being extended as people walked along. Religions, races, creeds and colors had disappeared. A miracle had occurred in the midst of the crisis. We had all become one, one people sharing one horrific, heartrending crisis. We had all become one family, one nation, indivisible, united in an effort to comfort and ease the grief and pain we were all sharing.
After a brief rest, I started out again because I knew if I sat still too long, I wouldn’t want to move again; and finally, St. James Place was just a few steps away.
Just a few more steps to my apartment, just one click of the key and thank God I was home at last.
I called my mom, sister and son to tell them that I was OK. At their urging, I went to the nearest hospital to be examined.
After several hours, I was released only to find that I had no way to get home, so for the second time that day, I walked several blocks to get back home.
Completely drained, tired, extremely dirty, hurting both mentally and physically, I cried out to God for help. I wanted to sleep and wake up to find that this was only a very bad dream.
My skin hurt like it had been scoured. The stinging and burning was unbearable. My eyes were hurting. I hurt all over. I tried scrubbing away the dust and dirt that was caked in my hair and on my body. I wanted the clothes I was wearing to be burned. I wanted the smell of death to be washed away from my nostrils. All I wanted was to feel safe again, but I knew at this point I couldn’t. I could not remember ever being so afraid or feeling so alone. I had no one to talk to, and if I did, what could I tell them? I knew I couldn’t afford to break down. I couldn’t because I was alone and plagued by all that I had seen. Things no one should have to see, so I sat there and stared at the walls trying not to think.
Too tired to deal with anything more, I dozed off and on in my recliner and finally fell into a deep sleep from sheer exhaustion.
At 2 a.m., Sept. 12, 2001, I awoke to a new day. I had survived hell. I had felt its horrible heat and withstood the pain. I had survived its destructive power.
I am truly blessed and grateful to God for sparing me and my friends, for allowing His angels to lead, guide and protect us and to take us safely home. All of my immediate co-workers that were in the office with me that day survived.
Although, I sometimes find myself jumping at shadows and extremely loud noises or feeling uncomfortable in large crowds, I am once again secure in who I am. I no longer question God about that day because I know now that mine is not to question why, but to enquire of Him what it is He has left me here to do, to fulfill that mission and live the remainder of my life to its fullest extent.
Sheryl Howard Fields is a native of Savannah who currently resides in Brooklyn, N.Y.
I was in New York City for a U.S. Customs Service wearing apparel seminar on 9/11. We were in 6 World Trade Center on the fourth floor of the eight-story building. Our building was 50 feet or so from 1 World Trade Center.
Our seminar was getting started with attendance sheets, introductions and plans for a group to go to Little Italy for supper that night. Lunch plans were made about lunch in Chinatown for real Chinese food.
As we were talking, the building shook suddenly. One of the New Yorkers commented that, “We don’t get earthquakes in New York very often.” A few seconds later there was a rumble, rumble, bump, bump. Someone commented that somebody was moving furniture.
Several of us looked at each other and said something like, “I don’t think so!” A few seconds after that, someone stuck his head in the room and said for “everyone to get out NOW!” I grabbed my jacket, umbrella and briefcase and headed for the door as we were directed.
We were led down a hall and then down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor. We were told to wait behind the doors until they came back and told us which way to go. We were told to go out of our building, turn right, not left or straight ahead, and cross the pedestrian bridge to the World Financial Center and exit there.
As I approached the bridge, I saw pieces of clothing, shoes, hats and broken glass. Some of the revolving doors and push type doors had glass broken out. A portion of the roof of the bridge was also shattered.
When we had crossed the bridge into the World Financial Center, things seemed more normal. I was with several of my friends from the seminar when we exited the center. We went a few hundred feet outside before we stopped and tried to find out what had happened. People were looking back at 1 World Trade Center and pointing up. There was a fire about 80 stories up. We asked what happened and someone said that it appeared that a corporate jet had struck the tower.
The weather was beautiful, the sky was all blue and cloudless. Nobody could miss seeing the building.
I had my camera with me and started taking pictures of the building, figuring that the fire department would get the fires out shortly. People were waving out the windows and a helicopter was circling the building. I had taken all of the pictures remaining on the roll of film so I proceeded to put in a new roll. Then someone said that people were jumping out of the building. I put my camera back in the case since I did not want pictures of people jumping to their deaths.
I was standing there with some of my friends when someone said, “Look out, there comes another one.” A large jetliner came down the Hudson River, banked hard left and had the engines screaming as it aimed for the south tower.
Then we knew that the first plane had not been an accident. There were other buildings in my view that obstructed my vision, so I did not see the actual impact, but I felt it and heard it and saw the flames coming from that crash. We were amazed that someone could or would do such a terrible thing.
I thought: Dear God, please take care of those poor people trapped in those buildings and their families, as well as those innocent people on the airplanes. I prayed that those still alive would be rescued.
The crowd seemed remarkably calm for what had happened. I backed up closer to the Hudson River. There were reports of other planes being missing. We did not know where they were headed.
There were ferry boats on the river taking people across to Hoboken, N.J. When we were told to please leave the area, I got on one of the ferries. I tried to call from Hoboken but could not get a phone call to go through. Then I decided that I had to get back to Manhattan before something else prevented that. I tried to use my New York MetroPass, but it wouldn’t work in New Jersey.
As I was trying to find the correct change, a nice PATH train employee used his card to get me on the train going back to Manhattan. As the train was arriving in New York, there was an announcement: “NO PASSENGERS!! NO PASSENGERS!! THE LINE IS CLOSED. THE STATION IS CLOSED. PLEASE LEAVE THE AREA.” I exited the subway about a block and a half from my hotel.
People were gathering in the lobby. All of the people from our seminar arrived safely. In fact, all of the people in 6 World Trade Center survived that attack and the collapse of 1 World Trade Center just 50 feet away from our building.
I was finally able to call the office and get them to connect me with my wife at about 2:15 p.m. The first plane had struck at 8:46 a.m. Fortunately, my wife did not realize that my building was so close to 1 World Trade Center.
I had to take a train to get back to Savannah. I left New York at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday and arrived home Friday at about 7:30 a.m.
Randal Robinson, Savannah
• • •
I am a Savannah native who was stationed at Dewitt Army Hospital during the 9/11 attacks.
I remember driving in to work that day and hearing about an “accidental” crash of a jetliner into the first Trade Center tower. By the time I got to work, everyone in the entire building was glued to a television set.
As I watched, the second plane hit the second tower, and bedlam broke lose. The hospital was evacuated of all civilians, and we were informed by our commander that the U.S. was under terrorist attack.
I was numb. I couldn’t believe what was going on, even as we went into lockdown mode and prepared our emergency room for any casualties that might have been sent our way from the Pentagon.
Fortunately, we didn’t receive any, but we stood guard on the hospital and all surrounding facilities for the next 48 hours. The phone systems were log-jammed; I couldn’t get hold of my family members to let them know I was OK until late into the evening.
We were finally allowed to go home to our families late on Wednesday evening. I had no idea what was going on outside the post. I just remember how strange it seemed to not hear any planes flying overhead, as the D.C. area has three major airports.
All I could do at that point was go home to my family and hug my kids and tell them I loved them.
My mother burst into tears when she finally heard my voice on the phone. She wanted me to get out of the Army ASAP (I did, in May of the following year.) And, despite all that, perhaps the most surreal event that took place in that 48 hours was being mobbed by a group of people at a diner along my route home.
I’d stopped to get gas, and they were on the corner holding signs up that said “Honk if you’re proud to be an American,” etc., and waving American flags. A little girl with the group saw me and waved. Her dad saw her waving at me, and the group surrounded me, en masse, and wanted to shake my hand, take a picture with me, etc.
One guy even offered to pay for my tank of gas (To this day, I can’t see a fellow service member without shaking their hand and telling them thank you.). Too many emotions to recount.
Anthony Handy,
Herndon, Va.
On the morning of 9/11/2001 I was at home in Thunderbolt getting ready to take two paintings to Lynda Potter at Signature Gallery on Hilton Head Island for a show when she called in tears.
Her son-in-law had been scheduled to fly one of the planes that had been hijacked. When I got to Savannah, Lynda had just heard that her son-in-law had been rescheduled to another flight.
That night I wondered what I could do to help. Finally I knew what little I could do. I left bed and went out to the studio. There I started painting on a 30”x40” canvas without any preliminary drawing.
I painted through the night and through the day without sleep. That second night, ghostly visions of volunteers disappearing in endless waves of debris, white ash, and smoke crowded my dreams.
Over breakfast it occurred to me how compassionate New Yorkers were as wave upon wave went down into the hell hole of the Twin Towers looking for any remains to retrieve.
September 13th was my day to work at the East End Gallery, and in the afternoon as I was finishing the painting a woman came up and screamed at me.
“How dare you try to make money off of this tragedy!”
“I’m sorry my painting upsets you, but I haven’t been able to sleep since this happened. Besides I wanted to honor all of the police, firefighters, and volunteers who had enough compassion to try to help victims whether it was their job or not. I’m proud of how quickly Americans reacted. That’s why I have named the painting Compassionate Wave.”
The woman blinked and started crying, “Thank you, this is the first time I’ve been able to cry since 9/11.”
Without another word she turned and walked out. That night I finally slept through the night.
The following year, Robin Cembalest, executive editor of Art News, referred to Compassionate Wave as a true historical painting that could be compared with Goya and Picasso when she was giving a lecture at the Trustees Theatre for SCAD’s sponsored show called In Response.
At that point I nearly had a stroke. Since then the painting has sometimes been on exhibit on 9/11 as a memorial.
Sandy Branam, Thunderbolt
• • •
My brother-in-law was killed in the Pentagon. He did not work there. He was there for a meeting. This year, his daughter gave birth to a baby boy and she named him after him. It does not seem like 10 years have passed since Terry was killed.
Lynn Lynch,
Tybee Island
• • •
I was a supervisor in the control room at a nuclear power plant that morning. The shift manager told us about the first jet hitting the World Trade Center soon after it happened. A few minutes later, he returned and he told us of the second strike.
We suspected terrorist activity. The news got worse during the shift. We always thought we were secondary targets, and rumors of a missing jet near Atlanta made matters worse. Since 9/11, the plant’s emergency procedures and training were strengthened for possible terrorist activities. Security at the plant was enhanced to meet any threat.
Clarke Johnson, Lyons
• • •
My family was living in Atlanta. I remember planes being grounded. It was so weird to drive by Hartsfield and see/hear nothing but silence. I recall being grateful that my baby son wouldn’t remember the tensions or tears of that time.
Ashley Hutcheson, Savannah
• • •
There isn’t enough space for me to complete my thought/story, but my cousin was killed in the Pentagon that morning. We couldn’t get in touch with her, and that night she didn’t come home. Her car was still in the Metro lot. Three kids under 10 she left.
Sandy Baker, Savannah
• • •
I was just getting ready for the day when I heard the report on TV: the first plane had hit the World Trade Center. Come to find out, my aunt had been late to a meeting in the office where the Pentagon was hit; she had to replace her whole staff.
Sarah Ryan, Savannah
• • •
I had just moved to Savannah three days before the attack and was starting my new job on Sept. 11. I was in the parking lot when I heard about the first plane on the radio and walked into work introducing myself and asking what in the heck was happening.
Virginia Gribben, Savannah
• • •
Like most people on 9/11, I was sitting in front of a TV watching planes plowing into the twin towers in New York. The TV I was watching was located a corridor away from where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, killing 184 people.
The most vivid thing I remember from that day was the bravery of our military men and women as they surrounded us in the Pentagon courtyard. They were trained for just such a mission, running into that burning building and pulling out the victims and survivors. They also knew we were not trained for an attack of this magnitude. We saw the black smoke, covered bodies and people all around us bleeding and covered with a fine white dust.
We stood there in total shock, but these fine soldiers calmed our fears and eventually led groups of us out through a covered delivery route into an outside parking lot. I lost two close friends that day, but I gained so much awareness of how faithful and strong our fighting forces can be when lives are on the line.
The anniversary is very important to me. I believe that at this particular moment in time America came together in a beautiful way, and since then things have changed so dramatically. I feel so bad for all the families who want people to remember what happened to us that day 10 years ago. Their remembrance is being tainted by the people who want to make this memorial into a “Day of Service,” instead of a day to remember and stand firm in our resolve that this will never happen on American soil again.
Karen Cooper,
Savannah
• • •
It must’ve been Tuesday, because Armin Chisholm and I were on the golf course. At the No. 7 hole, the guys who work the caddy shack came out to tell us. Both Armin and I called our sons. I think we both felt it might be an all-out attack. With the port of Savannah and the military, we thought we might be next.
We tried to keep playing, though. Armin shot better and better, while I couldn’t hit the side of a barn after that. We went to the club house and watched the TV in the dining room till about 2 p.m.
Down at Tybee, of course, I turned on the TV again and watched those planes flying again and again into the side of the buildings.
Rob Cullum’s boy, my next-door neighbor, brought out the flag and hoisted it up the flagpole over their dock, as doleful a boy as I have ever seen. He’s a dead ringer for a Norman Rockwell painting, or was then.
That knocked me completely off my pins. I called my daughter and my grandson, only 3 at the time, said, “Dynamom, the fires, the
fires ... ,” as stunned by the images as we all were.
Finally, I had to get away from the tube, so I drove to Home Depot, which was completely deserted. Driving home by way of downtown, it, too, looked like a ghost town. Sorrow was the theme of the day, profound sorrow.
Next day, I went to chapel, and our old priest, dead now, who was a chaplain out in Burma during the second World War, shaken with rage and pain, said, “Pray for those people if you can.”
Well, that day I couldn’t, but I can now. They are as afflicted as we are by the bad eggs in their basket. The fury they unleashed on themselves by that attack may go on forever. I don’t know, but I’m a pie-eyed optimist, I pray for them, I pray for us, and I pray for peace.
JoAnn Risher,
Savannah
• • •
I was working at Delta Airlines here in Savannah and had to work late the night before because of a delayed plane. I got home at 4 a.m. My wife at the time called me at 9 a.m. or so to tell me a plane crashed in New York. I turned on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit.
I watched in horror as the events unfolded. My wife’s family was from New York, and I knew she had two uncles that worked in the Trade Center. I called my mother-in-law to see if she had spoken to her bothers. She did, and they had gotten out.
Sept. 11 will always be a day of remembrance to me and my family. I choose to celebrate Sept. 11 as I do Memorial Day or Veterans Day, with somber reminders and tributes to those who lost their lives and for those in our military who choose to serve so that I can live my life free.
Kevin Digou,
St. Simons Island
• • •
My sister-in-law and I were just beginning a four-week trip in the U.K. and were in Staffordshire, England, on 9/11.
When we stopped and inquired about a room at a B&B, the lady looked at us and said, “You don’t know, do you?” We had no idea what she was talking about since we hadn’t heard any news. She said, “You had better come in and let me fix you some tea.”
She then told us what had happened in our beloved America, put us in the parlor with a TV and her little daughter brought us the tea. She did not have a room for us, but called her parents, who put us up in a room in their house, took us out to dinner that night and told us we could stay as long as we needed.
We were in shock and would not have been safe driving around then. They took us to the daughter’s for breakfast the next morning, and she had arranged for a neighbor to let me use his computer to reach my family.
The news was saying one of the planes went down in Pittsburgh, Pa., where our oldest daughter and family lives. Our son is in federal law enforcement, so I knew he would be involved.
Our other child and husband were leaving Jamaica that morning on an American Airlines plane. When they did not take off, and she heard the cabin crew saying “You remember so and so? They’re gone,” and another name, “They’re gone,” she asked what had happened and was told about the attack.
American Airlines took the passengers back to the hotel and put them up for another four days. My sister-in-law and I continued our trip (all flights back to the U.S. had been cancelled). When the Brits heard our accents (especially the older ones), their eyes would fill up with tears, and many said they would never forget what we did for them in World War II.
None of us must ever forget that it was and still is an attack on the freedom and liberty of our extraordinary country. God Bless America!
Hope Lawler, Savannah
• • •
On Sept. 11, 2001, I was home with my 1-year-old daughter, going about our morning routine. I was four months pregnant with my second daughter and my husband just happened to have the day off. I had the TV on the morning news and we were playing on the floor.
My husband told me to change the channel to children’s programming for my daughter, but I laughed and said, “She likes ‘The Today Show.’” Just then, the first plane hit the first tower and news program began to cover it. As I was beginning to wonder if the crash was purposeful, the second plane hit and I worried over what kind of world I was bringing another child into.
I remember being completely horrified when the towers fell. Later that night, I saw a young man in his military uniform at the grocery store, and I began to worry for him and his family and all of the military people I see around town every day and their families.
That night, and every night since, we have prayed as a family “for the soldiers who work so hard for us and their families who are waiting for them to come back home.”
I have three children now. We pray for the fathers of their classmates when they are deployed. We prayed for our neighbor every time he was gone.
My children have never known our country not at war.
Samantha Douberly, Savannah
• • •
When 9/11 occurred I was living in Charleston, S.C., working as a social worker with a hospice organization. My daughter called to tell me she was watching the news and saw an airplane crashing into the first World Trade Center tower. A few minutes later she called back to say another airplane hit the second tower. I knew then that America was being attacked. At this time my husband was working out of town at Dulles Airport. After hearing about the airplane that crashed into the Pentagon and Flight 93 going down in Shanksville, Pa., this confirmed my earlier assumption. Due to the high usage of the cell phones, it was the next day that I heard from my husband that he was OK.
Growing up in the Washington, D.C., area and having worked at the Pentagon, I was concerned about the
184 people that were killed there. My husband and I went to the Pentagon shortly after the crash to take pictures of the Pentagon and the memorials to the people who were killed at the Pentagon.
Moving from Charleston to Savannah five years ago, I have become aware of our vulnerability with the ports that are in both cities. How much security do we have with these container ships that are coming in from all over the world? Our future is not secure now, nor will it ever be. We can look to God for future plans and be secure in the hope that He gives us through Jesus Christ and in his word.
The 10-year anniversary reminds me of how Americans came together then and will come together now. We are the United States of America and will fight for every ounce of freedom that was designed for us in the Constitution. I thank every American that served through Emergency Services and in the Armed Forces for their sacrifice for me. There are so many young people who were 9 or 10 when the event happened and are now serving in the military. Many of our military have been over to Iraq or Afghanistan several times. Let’s wrap these wars up and bring our military home!
Georgianne Thornburgh, Pooler
• • •
I was backpacking with my brother on the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec.
On Sept. 10, we set up camp in the woods near a logging road. The morning of Sept. 11 was so cold I resolved to find a new pastime (my resolve faded as I warmed up.) We hiked into the small town of Ste. Margueritte and went into a country store. The woman running the store excitedly tried to tell us in French what had happened in the U.S. She kept saying “La Tour” and making hand signals toward the floor. Best we could tell after her son came to help was that a plane had crashed between Boston and New York. While that was tragic news, it didn’t seem to deserve the excitement they displayed. Later that day we made it into the larger town of Causapscalle, where I was able to call my wife. When she explained about both towers collapsing to the ground, I had to grab onto a counter to keep from collapsing myself. On our drive home, we noticed the Canadians were flying their flags at half staff as a sign of solidarity with their wounded southern neighbor.
Bernie Goode,
Tybee Island
• • •
I was 11 years old. I was into my second month of the sixth Grade at Shuman Middle School.
I remember that morning, the assistant principal, Mr. Waterbook, had asked the student body to stand for a moment of silence. I wasn’t sure as to what it was for at the moment.
That day when my father picked me up from school, he had told me that, “They attacked us now. It’s too dangerous to go to the mall now.”
I hadn’t understood the importance of the situation yet. Once I got home, my mother and I walked to a convenience store, and when we got back, she turned on to CBS, and Dan Rather was reporting on the attacks.
I remember turning on to every channel, even entertainment channels such as Nickelodeon, MTV, etc., and seeing some type of simulcast of the news.
The entire day and night, all I did was watch various news channels. Still in disbelief, the importance of the day still had not hit me yet. Once I got back to school the next day, all the kids were talking about and discussing it.
It was around this time that I slowly and gradually stopped watching cartoons and entertainment regularly and began following news channels every day up to today.
Jeffrey Albuna,
Savannah
• • •
On the morning of
Sept. 11, 2001, I was sitting at my desk at work. Shortly after my morning began, the events of that fateful day would prove to forever change life as I, and the entire free world, knew it.
The smiling faces of my son and daughter on the screen-saver were suddenly replaced with smoke billowing from the towers and masses of stunned people running for their lives.
The reality was that the security and serenity that we felt as Americans was forever gone. Our company vice president, David Kaye, called a plant-wide meeting where the details of the catastrophic events were revealed. I was asked to say a prayer.
I remember praying for our nation through tear-stained eyes. My heart wept for the innocent lives that were stolen. I cried for the children whose parents would not be going home that evening. I wept for the firefighters and for the policemen.
In the midst of my prayer, I quietly thanked God that my family and friends were safe, and I prayed that those responsible would be brought to justice. God answered my prayers.
Shay Jenkins,
Savannah
• • •
I was at work on Fort Stewart in the Directorate of Logistics; End Items Shop when the planes started to crash into the Twin Towers. I immediately called my wife and I called my Squadron (AF Reserves at Charleston AFB) to volunteer for immediate call up to help out in New York City or at the Pentagon.
Guy Piatti,
Richmond Hill
• • •
On Sept. 11, 2001, I was working at the Botanical Gardens on Eisenhower and Sally Mood here in Savannah. It was a rather warm day, being that I was hauling mulch from a pile at one end of the gardens to the gardens in the front of the main building.
There was another volunteer there, Bertha, a wonderful South African lady I had had the pleasure of meeting in the previous few months, and we had a very nice friendship. She was active in the garden community, as well as had a section of the gardens she tended on a regular basis.
This morning, she pulled up in her Toyota pickup and unfortunately, locked her keys inside. She came to me asking for assistance. I’m not exactly sure what time this was, but it was early in the morning.
I thought, since the vehicle maintenance shop was on Sally Mood, that I would ask one of the men working there if they had a slim-jim to get into the car. When I knocked on the office door, they were quick to assist and made mention that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers.
Now, neither Bertha nor I had any kind of radio on or were “connected” to anyone at the time.
We were in the gardens to work peacefully. Our thoughts were that it was a prop plane of sorts and that accidents happen. The gentleman from the shop attempted to use many tools to get into the truck, without success (you know how side-locks can be). We had to wait until the main house was open to use the phone.
No problem ... we continued on with our work and the gentleman went back to his. About two hours later, the president of the Botanical Gardens, Kenny Power, came to us, knowing we were there, informing us that both Trade Center towers had collapsed because two airplanes had hit them.
My first visualization, having no idea of architecture, was that they had fallen longways down ... crushing anyone along the length of their fall and in its path, people inside the building and other buildings as they fell sideways.
I didn’t know what to do, and another lady who had joined us since made mention of Osama bin Laden (the first I had heard of his name).
We all decided to continue our work at the gardens. Because of our location near Hunter Army Airfield, we noticed more military traffic almost immediately. Planes were taking off at a more frequent interval.
During all this time, neither of us had seen any video footage. We continued to work until about 2 or so in the afternoon. By the time I got to a television at around 3 p.m., I was completely shocked to see all the footage of what had happened, the running, the screaming, the smoke, the interviews and the fire.
The playback of some of the earlier reports on Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, etc., some of them were, at the earlier reports, still showing footage of people who had jumped to their deaths. I was totally stunned by what had happened.
As time went on, I realized there was no one I knew that wasn’t somehow or another physically connected to someone in those buildings or in the presence of them as they were destroyed.
I had friends in New York who saw it. I had co-workers with family in New York. I had customers in my hotel who lived there. There was no one who did not know someone who was somehow exposed to this catastrophe first-hand.
To this day, I don’t know of anyone who isn’t at least once removed from this act of terrorism. It isn’t the politics I was thinking of at the time. It’s the humanity. The loss, the weeping, the cruelty and what all those in the buildings were going through when they knew they were going to die.
Everyone has their moment of “Where were you when?” Mine are the Space Shuttle Challenger and, most recently, the bombing of the World Trade Center. I’m 45. Others will remember John F. Kennedy. Unfortunately, it’s these defining moments that define our history.
William Harvey,
Savannah
• • •
On Sept.11, I was just waking up to go to a French class at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind. I remember walking down the hall of my fraternity and noticing people crowded inside one of the rooms. I ducked inside to see the replay of the first tower being hit by the plane.
I missed that French class that day because suddenly school seemed less important. We watched as the second tower was hit and both towers eventually fell. Up until that point, I felt that the Columbine school shootings had been the most significant news story that directly impacted people from my generation.
That day I knew that our nation was at war. I didn’t know what my role in that war would be until years later, but I am proud that the work of our Armed Services has prevented another attack from happening on American soil.
Troy Stemen,
Hinesville
• • •
The day of 9/11, I was on my way to my fire station. My mom called me and asked me to come to her house ASAP. When I got there, she started telling me that a plane hit one of the Twin Towers. She turned on the TV, and that’s when I saw the second plane hit the second tower.
As a firefighter/EMT, I know what I had to do. Being from New York, I went home to help with whatever I could do. I will never forget what I went through. Seeing the people and knowing that I had to try to find my family.
And this 10th anniversary means to me, that my fellow — “Brother” — hasn’t been here for 10 years. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss him.
Deana Crews-Morgan, Springfield
• • •
I remember I was working at the VA (in Dublin), and I was in the dining room with my vets.
We all watched this, and I heard my veterans saying that they can’t believe this and how they would all re-enlist and fight whomever did this. There were tears in some of their eyes.
I was thinking “Where are my children and husband?” I cried because of knowing what these vets had sacrificed already and here they are wanting to do it again. Bless these men.
Cindy Patton,
Cochran
• • •
My son worked for Morgan Stanley. My wife watched the attacks at home on TV. She asked the golf pros to get me off the golf course (at The Landings.) As soon as I got home, I tried calling Morgan but could not get through. I tried the local office, and they could not contact New York.
It was not until early evening that we heard from our son. He had escaped from the 63rd floor of Tower No. 2. My wife noticeably aged during that day!
Allen Cywin,
Savannah
My husband and I were living in London on 9/11. He was working for his Boston company in their London office. I was on holiday for three years. That morning, Tom arrived back in London after a meeting in Boston. Rather than taking the BA flight from Boston at 8 a.m. on the 11th as he usually would do, he took the overnight flight out of Boston, Sept 10th.
I took the underground to The American Women’s Club for a meeting. As I walked into the room, they said Tom’s office was calling me and did I know what had happened in New York City. The American Embassy had contacted the AWC, warning the members to keep a low profile.
Everyone in London felt London would be hit next. They suggested we not dress as an American (so I was of course wearing a navy blazer, white shirt and tan trousers — screaming American). Rather than going home via the Underground, I took a taxi. The driver was in tears. He wanted to take care of me. When I entered my building the porter on duty, a very stiff upper lip Brit, hugged me!
We lived on Grosvenor Square, across from the American Embassy. The Embassy set up tents on the square for condolence books for people to sign. I volunteered for an afternoon.
These little older English ladies, dressed in their appropriate suits and hats, held our hands and said we (Americans) were there for them during World War II (including my father with the Merchant Marine Corps) and now they were with us. I also attended the religious remembrance at St. Paul’s with the Queen and her family in attendance. I didn’t make it into St Paul’s, but they broadcast the ceremony on loud speakers.
That weekend, we ran into many Americans trapped in London because flights were not allowed back into the U.S. I have always felt a gap in my experience of 9/11 because I was in London. I didn’t experience no airplanes flying, and if there was one, there was worry.
I couldn’t believe the first time back in the States and all of the American flags flying everywhere. It looked like the 4th of July. Last year I spoke to a friend who lived in New York City, and she shared that morning with me. She took her children to school, then raced to bring them home. Amazing.
Susan Reilly,
Savannah
• • •
I was getting ready to start a new job on Sept. 17, 2001, so I was at home on 9/11, enjoying a rare week off with a second cup of coffee in hand and watching the morning news. Seeing the news coverage after the first plane hit, I felt sure there had been some kind of tragic accident. A mechanical malfunction or some sort of serious illness to the pilot.
Watching the second plane on its approach and making a direct hit, I felt my breathing stop for a few seconds. This was deliberate, this was a disaster, this was terrifying. I called to my mother to come over to the TV. Then I started crying uncontrollably, shaking from head to toe.
This was unprecedented. There were no protocols for this. I called my son’s school. Should I come pick him up? No, the school felt it was better to keep the students in their routine for now.
So I stood, mesmerized, frozen, like the rest of the world, watching and praying for it all to stop. I still have the newspaper from the next day, and I always will. As the 10th anniversary draws near I still feel somewhat afraid. Sept. 11 changed everything in how we view the security of our country and how we view our enemies. I still believe there are far more good people on this earth than bad, but on 9/11 we learned there are some really, really bad people out there who value nothing but their own extreme and radical teachings.
I am very thankful that we have not seen anything similar on U.S. soil since that awful, heartbreaking day.
Kathleen Collins,
Pooler
• • •
I had worked the night shift at Wedgy’s Pizza and was sleeping. My husband woke me and told me the towers had been hit. Every year I think of how our country united and communities cared. I wonder where the love for one another has gone since then.
Sallie Duncan,
Allenhurst
• • •
The memory that stands out to me is picking up my daughter from school. She was in second grade at Charles Ellis. As I picked her up, the teacher, Mrs. Laura Filson, looked at me with the same wide-eyed disbelief, and said, “They don’t know.” The “they” being the kids with their inherent innocence.
Christopher Morris, Savannah
• • •
I was home at the time in Rochester, N.Y., but had connections to New York City where I grew up. Remembering 9/11 for me means remembering seeing the World Trade Center towers falling and asking, “Why?” All people need to remember the rainbow connection of us all and that love and tolerance will trump any acts of evil.
Rosemarie Maldonado, Savannah
• • •
I will forever remember that day. We were living on the southside of Savannah at the time and I was working from my home office that morning. My wife called me from work and asked if I was watching the television. When I replied to her that I was not, I was upstairs in my office working, she told me I had better go downstairs and turn on the TV. I did that just in time to see the second plane hit the tower.
I was angry, in shock and could not believe something like this could happen in the U.S. I will also remember it for another reason:
Sept. 11, 2001 was my wife’s 50th birthday. We had reservations at 1790 to celebrate her big day, which we kept, but it was not the joyous occasion it should have been.
Frederic Doyle III, Richmond Hill
• • •
On Sept. 11, my flight departed JFK at 5 a.m. for Berlin. I was on the way to visit relatives. Over the Atlantic the pilot announced, “The World Trade Center is burning.”
Stephen Blanton, Bluffton, S.C.
• • •
On Sept. 11, 2001, my wife and I were on a ship in Alaska. When I saw the news report, I thought someone was making a movie. Much to my surprise it was not a movie. To me Sept.11, 2001, means we have to be on alert at all times. There are people out there who want to destroy us and our way of life.
Donald “Pete” Stafford, Bulloch County
• • •
I was taking a class on rope rescue at the Georgia Fire Academy when the lead instructor came out onto the field to tell us that a plane had hit the first tower. We all thought it was an accident, until he came back out and told us that a second plane had impacted the other tower.
The class was canceled, as none of us could concentrate on learning, and several people in the class believed we would be going to assist in the rescue operations at the Trade Center. It changed my life and caused me to devote my career to becoming a qualified structure collapse technician and to teaching others the rescue techniques that I had learned.
I became an instructor at the Georgia Fire Academy and helped build Savannah Fire and Emergency Services Technical Rescue Team and the Georgia Search and Rescue Team for the Coastal Division.
The anniversary is a reminder to me that firefighters are always at risk of death and/or severe injury as they respond to assist people who many times are in the worst possible situations and are often in need of very specialized and highly trained responders.
Benjamin Morse, Savannah
• • •
I was in London having lunch. When we walked out of the restaurant, the city was weirdly quiet. No planes, very little traffic. Walking back to our hotel, we saw people glued to the TV in all the office spaces we passed. When we entered the Marriott near the U.S. Embassy, security came up to us and told us about the towers. It was like a bad movie. Shock. No one will ever forget where they were on that date.
Carol Chambers, Savannah
• • •
I was teaching my fifth-grade class in Florida when the disaster struck. It was a blur for me as my son, a chief warrant officer in the Marine Corps, was stationed at the Pentagon when the plane hit it. I was praying for hours to hear something from him and the call finally came about five hours later.
He was OK and in the bunker below the Pentagon guarding a prominent Washington head of our country. I received a call but felt so terribly sad for all the people that did not. My son is still in Washington, and my stepson, a captain in the Marine Corps, just returned from Afghanistan. We are a proud family of the USMC!
Elizabeth Vaeth, Townsend
I was driving on Abercorn on my way to work when I heard the tragic news that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. What a horrific accident, I thought, as did the radio broadcaster. I ran into my office and we turned on the TV in our employee break room, only to hear the horror that another plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We realized that our country was under attack.
When it was reported that the third plane had crashed into the Pentagon, I was devastated. One of my dearest friends works at the Pentagon. I couldn’t get through to him on his cell, could not locate any of his family members as they live all over the country and absolutely could not find out if he was OK. I left frantic messages on his cell and his home phone numbers.
When they reported what area of the Pentagon was hit, my heart dropped. All I could do was pray that he was all right. As I watched the horror unfold in the news, I was also preparing for the news that I had lost someone I loved very much.
Three days after the attacks, I finally got a brief message. He was OK but had been unable to contact anyone as he stayed at the Pentagon and was helping with the recovery efforts. He was very lucky that morning. He was on the other side of the Pentagon and told me that when the plane hit, the entire building shook.
He told me it was like living in a nightmare and did not want to talk about what he had seen. Every year on the anniversary of 9/11, I thank God for sparing my friend’s life. I didn’t lose anyone personally in the attacks that day, but I lost the innocent notion that I was safe from terrorists here in my own country. I was afraid of flying immediately following the attacks and still approach flying with caution. Although it hasn’t happened (yet), I wonder when terrorists will try again on our soil and possibly succeed, inflicting more pain on Americans.
We help so many countries in their time of need, and it seems like they take what we have to offer while looking down their noses at us. We are a nation of the most generous and forgiving people, responding to disasters as if they happened directly to us, and we deserve the respect of other countries, not their disdain. As in the song, “I’m proud to be an American”
Carole Burr,
Savannah
• • •
On Sept. 11, 2001, the world was changed as foreign terrorists attacked United States soil and spilled American blood. Directly after this horrific tragedy, the nation was united to a degree that has not been seen for many years.
For a brief time, the important things like family, community and country were at the forefront of everyone’s mind. It didn’t matter what race you were, or what your political views were. It didn’t even matter if you were a Yankees or a Red Sox fan. All that mattered was that you were an American. When you drove down the street, any street, you saw rows of red, white and blue. When you saw service men and women in the airport, they were being surrounded by citizens coming up to thank them for keeping us free. And everyone was proud to be an American.
Now that 10 years have passed, it pains me to look around and see that many of these things have changed. People are now embarrassed to admit they are Americans. When I see soldiers in the airport, the people who are talking to them now only have criticisms about how we shouldn’t be fighting anymore.
Your political view or sexual orientation now “define” who you are. And when I drive down the street, all the flags are gone. If we don’t take these messages to heart and continually remind ourselves what it means to be an American, then indeed the terrorists were successful.
If, however, we use their actions to strengthen ourselves and use their attacks to become a greater nation, then we will have won. The purpose of any terrorist attack is to cause fear, confusion and dissent among people. So to truly win the war on terror, we need to stay together and stay strong and once again be proud to be an American.
Bernie Kramer,
Savannah
• • •
The morning of the attacks came as a shock to me. I was three months pregnant with my third child living on post at Fort Bragg, N.C. My husband, who was in the Army and a company commander at the time, was deployed overseas in Bosnia.
One of my fellow Army spouses called me and asked me if I had seen the morning news. As I turned on the television, I couldn’t believe my eyes. As I sat there crying on the phone with the other spouse, I had to reassure her, and myself, that her husband was safe where he was.
Meanwhile, I am terrified for mine, wondering why I haven’t heard from him yet. I told her how my husband had proposed to me at the top of the World Trade Center at the restaurant. (I never dreamed that we would never be able to go back.) As we are watching, another plane hit the other tower.
We both screamed and cried “Why?” We then both knew that this wasn’t just a coincidence. We watched in horror as the towers fell knowing that so many had lost their lives.
Fort Bragg went on red alert. My daughter’s elementary school had armed soldiers standing outside protecting them. Sept. 11 changed our lives dramatically. Deployments became the norm. Missed birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. We did without my husband because we knew what he was doing was right. We would not let this happen again!
Ten years later, I still feel the same way. I will never forget what happened that day or those who paid the ultimate price.
Darla Alia,
Richmond Hill
• • •
It was my senior year at Calvary, and we were in chapel when the headmaster came in and told us. We didn’t know who attacked us at that time. I remember everyone being fearful that Savannah was possibly a target because of the military presence here. We all scattered around the campus to watch the events unfold on TV until we went home for the day.
Brooke Brannen, Savannah
• • •
I was working at Rich’s Clinique counter. A co-worker’s husband called and told her a plane flew into the World Trade Center. We all thought it was a joke in poor taste. He called back shortly and said it happened again. This time we heard the TV report in the background while he was on the phone.
I lived a short distance from the mall and asked to go home and get my small
8-inch portable TV. I plugged it in on our counter ledge. By 11 a.m. there were about 200 people watching it. Some merchants had closed up shop and were watching as well. A decision was made to close the mall at noon. We were in the midst of closing our registers when a woman started fussing with us about not being able to purchase her mascara, as the registers were shut down.
The Lancome counter rep said, “Ma’am we are under attack.” I found out the next day, my cousin’s husband, Harry Waizer, had been found alive but badly burned. They identified him by his wedding ring. His face was burned beyond recognition.
The only reason he was alive was being late to work that day. Otherwise he would have been on the 101st floor. He was in an elevator going to that floor when the plane hit.
Betsy Brazzeal,
Savannah
• • •
This day 10 years ago, I was sitting on my bed watching TV, then all of a sudden the screen flashed a scene of a airplane going into the building that was already on fire and my mouth dropped, I mean to the floor. I thought I was watching a movie scene or something.
I turned the TV up louder to hear that it was two planes that hit the towers and that it was a possible terror attack. Well, my oldest daughter had just joined the Navy in July and was shipped to Afghanistan to fight. I spoke to her and asked her was she afraid and she said no, so at that point I was not afraid either.
I prayed for her safe return, and off she went, and she has been in the Navy for 10 years now. God bless all the families involved.
Veronica Smalls, Savannah
• • •
It was a beautiful sunny day as I headed to Jones Beach. Working on a special project for Con Edison of New York afforded me a day off on Tuesday so that allowed me to travel to the beach without struggling with traffic.
My friend and I sat on the Throgs Neck Bridge connecting the Bronx to Queens when my cell phone rang. We didn’t have a radio on because we were busy catching up when my brother called to make sure I wasn’t in the city.
He was stunned to find out I was on a bridge and said to “Look to the city!” As I did, I watched those beautiful towers in flames, then the first tower went down. Words could not describe the feeling I had.
I’d grown up in New York all of my life and had never felt so scared. The many weeks following the attack brought us so much grief.
As the names came out of those who died every day, it was so heartbreaking to see one after another family touch by such cruelty. Con Edison spent months restoring services in lower Manhattan. A lot of good utility people gave 1,000 percent to get the customers up and running and the city back on its feet.
Months after the attack, you couldn’t hear one horn beeping and that is unusual for such a big city. People were courteous. The city was quiet. Many mourned. I will never forget that terrible day and the months following.
Bonnie O’Leary,
Savannah
• • •
I was on an Air Guard C-130 en route to a military exercise in Wisconsin. During the flight one of the flight crew walked past me going back to the flight deck. While passing me, he bent down and told me somebody had hijacked a plane and flown it into the World Trade Center.
The guy sitting next to me had heard part of the statement, and asked what the man had said. I told him what I had heard, and we discussed whether he was serious and the meaning of the action should it be true. About 10 minutes later, the loadmaster announced that we would be landing in Knoxville “for security reasons.”
Upon landing, we discovered what had happened. We spent the night in a motel, and, because we were a military aircraft, we were allowed to take off the next morning and come back to Savannah.
John Veal,
Clyo
• • •
I was off from my job that morning on Sept. 11, 2001, waking up from the breaking news on channel 11, seeing the airplanes crashing into the twin towers, it was unbelievable to see that people can be so mean to each other.
Cheryl Swan-Gaynor, Savannah
• • •
My family and I were vacationing at Disney World in Florida on 9/11. I remember having to run back to the room to get something and a gentleman in the elevator told me a plane had hit one of the twin towers. At first I thought it was a small plane that lost its way somehow, but he then went on to tell me they thought it was a terrorist attack. As my family and I made our way to one of the water parks we listened as the second tower got hit, then as each tower came down.
We were meeting up with my in-laws. They came not knowing what had happened. It was a shock to us all. The parks were closed, and our hearts were broken for all those lost, as well as their loved ones. I haven’t been able to visit the site of 9/11, even after having been in the area several times. I cry just thinking about it.
Michelle Croasmun, Guyton
• • •
I had lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., all my life, only about four miles from the World Trade Center. I worked in the magnificent towers for a couple of years prior to 9/11 and I have since moved to beautiful Bluffton, S.C.
The morning of 9/11, I received a phone call asking if I had heard what was happening and directed me to turn on the TV right away. I turned it on and could not believe what I was seeing, even as it horribly unfolded before my eyes. It was not happening. It had to be an H.G. Wells type of thing, but then, sadly, the reality hit me and that was the moment I knew life would never again be the same.
The tears, the pain, the devastation, the disbelief. The disgusting smell of jet fuel burning permeating all the air around me. The neighbors waiting for word on their loved ones, praying they will get home safely, some for days, even weeks. The office paper blowing across the sky for miles, the ashes on my roof and in my yard, it was devastation as I never
experienced .
The flowers and purple drapes on the firehouse around the corner, the fire trucks covered deep with soot, the candles everywhere in an action of hope and then memory. There were photographs on display of the missing, too numerous to be believed. Even in the days after, when the rain had washed the ashes from my roof and soaked them into the ground, the pain never stopped.
The horror of that day constantly lingers on in my mind. Yes, I was right, life has never been the same. May the beautiful memories of the lives lost help to comfort. May we all never forget to pray for peace on Earth.
Gail Mann,
Bluffton, S.C.
• • •
I was in the nursery at the hospital I worked for the day America changed. The nursery is the “joyful” department of a hospital, but that day it was bittersweet due to life and death happening at the same moment. Sept. 11 will forever be a part of our lives. Remember those who died and the families they left behind.
Juli Zopf,
Savannah
I was living in Torrance, Calif., when the U.S. was under attack. I woke up that morning with my iced coffee. I went to my computer room using Webtv. My dog Chihuahua Ratty Jo jumped up on my lap and crawled inside my bathrobe to keep warm. A friend sent me an email in capital letters, “CHECK TV NEWS NOW!!!!!” I was puzzled and turned the TV on. I was stunned about the attack on the World Trade Center. I had visited the World Trade Center one month before the attack. I stood on top of the Empire State Building taking in breathtaking views of spectacular New York City and the World Trade Center. I could not believe what I was seeing on the news. Every year on the 9/11 anniversary I remember the tragedy and victims.
Frank Lala, Savannah
• • •
The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I was sitting at a picnic table at the Light Armored Vehicle Leader’s Course, Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, Calif. It was early, so I was trying to “wake up” with a cup of coffee, a Red Bull and Gatorade. My friend, and peer, walked over to me and asked if I’d hear the World Trade Center was hit by a plane. It didn’t fully register at first, as I thought he was talking about our training for the day or that it’d been an accident.
After walking over to a radio near our staging area, the second plane had hit. We continued training, going out to the field that day for vehicle certifications. I was one of the few who had cellular phone service, and was able to let another peer make a collect call to check on his fiance who then worked at Reagan National Airport. She was OK, and couldn’t explain much, but I don’t think we wanted to know.
I managed to make it off base that evening and watched the footage for hours at another friend and peer’s home, before returning to base the next day with an access restriction that was to last at all the military installations I entered, thereafter, for the next three years of my career to go along with a non-stop cycle of deployments for nearly every military peer I know.
I think 9/11 cast a shroud of perpetual uncertainty over two entire generations; mine, which is X, and the Millennials who have followed. That shroud was finally lifted for me on the night of May 1, 2011, when President Obama announced that our Special Forces had killed Osama bin Laden, a peace I believe every service member fights for.
My life, and those of so many others, changed so much; yet, very much stayed the same by the grace of God. I thank my family, friends, peers, mentors, and more for continual love and support as I reintegrated into mainstream society. I hope our nation continues to heal, together, and rebuilds our nation together so our brothers and sisters have something as stable as what I was blessed to come home to. Semper Fi.
Kent Fletcher,
Bluffton, S.C.
• • •
I was living and working in Columbus, Ohio, that day when our mayor received a call from the Pentagon informing that our airport had been designated a “safe haven” and we should expect up to 100 planes filled with passengers in the next two hours and that all would need hotel rooms.
He called our office at the Convention and Visitors Bureau and asked for our help to orchestrate the logistics of it all. At the time, none of us really understood what was happening, but “overdrive” kicked in and we went to work. Ultimately, we got about 35 planes and we were able to manage it quite well. Most of those passengers did not get home for days.
Joe Marinelli, Savannah
• • •
Well, I definitely remember that day. I fell asleep on the couch and I had left my television on. That morning I woke up watched as the planes hit the towers. And as the news went on, I watched the towers tumble. I saw the people running and it was very emotional to me. I have a Savannah Morning News newspaper with the towers on it still. This paper has never been disturbed, but the color has faded. But, to me, nothing is faded in my memory of that day. And that is also a day to remember. God bless all.
Steve Silva, Savannah
• • •
I arrived in New Jersey on 9/10 to work at a paper plant as an electrician. On 9/11 I was in the basement of the plant when a co-worker came down and said a plane hit the World Trade Center. As I reached the main floor I overheard people saying a second plane hit the other tower.
I said this is no accident. By this time a lot of my co-workers were going to the roof to look at the fires burning. I tried to call my wife back in Savannah, but the phone lines were too busy. Finally, I was able to get her. We were working across the river in New Jersey so we could see the plumes of smoke rising from the rubble. I will never forget the feeling of helplessness. So sad. How could this have happened? Every time I think about that I still feel sad.
Daniel Williams,
Pooler
• • •
I was with my third graders in our classroom at White Bluff Elementary. The children could sense that something was wrong because of people coming in and out of the classroom that day. A lot of children were picked up earlier than usual. I can remember thinking what is going to happen next? It was a very scary day. As I watched TV during the time my class was at lunch, the tears came as I sat in disbelief that such horrible events had happened in our country. Later in the day, I joined many other people at White Bluff Methodist Church for a prayer service to pray for all of the people that lost their lives and their families. I had never seen so many people at church as there were that night.
This day will never be forgotten. The memory of it comes back not just on 9/11 each year, but I have found myself thinking about it at other times through these last 10 years.
Jane Anderson, Savannah
• • •
My family and I lived on Cape Cod in 2001 - in Falmouth, where we grew up. I had just dropped my daughter off for her second day of kindergarten. It was a beautiful morning. Driving home, I was listening to Howard Stern of all people, when he said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I switched it to my local talk radio WXTK.
Falmouth is home to the Otis Air National Guard Base. A woman called into the talk show and said that they were scrambling the jets, (These were the jets that took off for New York City only too late to matter.)
The announcers were saying “God Bless America - we are under attack.” I have never been so scared driving by myself to my home. My mom had tried calling me. She lives in Falmouth as well. I finally got to her house, and we had a sandwich and a beer and watched Peter Arnett. His voice calmed us both. My mother is Canadian by birth and has a green card to this day. She said something to me that I will never forget:
“Jackie, I was born in Nova Scotia and I am Canadian, but today I am 100 percent an American.”
It’s funny what you remember after all these years.
Jacqueline Clauson, Savannah
• • •
My wife, Veronica, was working in downtown Washington, D.C., and I was traveling on business in Dallas. I was in the office and about 15 minutes from leaving to go to DFW for a flight to San Diego when we got word of the attack. I called for Veronica but the lines were jammed, as was email. She couldn’t leave her office because the subway was overflowing with commuters, and I was in a panic because I didn’t know her status.
I called Hertz and was allowed to take the car one-way back to our home in Centreville, Va. I finally talked to Veronica six hours after the attack; she got home by cab. It took me two days of driving to return home, and I called Veronica every four to six hours along the way to be assured of her and my safety.
I admit to tearing up as the song by Ray Stevens with “proud to be an American” in it played several times en route. What a relief when I finally arrived at Hertz at Dulles and saw my lovely wife waiting for me to take us home.
John Wright, Savannah
• • •
On 9/11 I arrived in my office on Wall Street before the first plane hit. A bit later fellow workers arrived very much shaken and said, “Look outside.” The sky was full of papers and debris. We turned on the radio and heard of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. As our TVs were not yet connected we used our computers to stay current.
When the second plane hit we felt the impact and then when the report came through we knew it was no accident. Our electricity and Internet stayed on. When the first tower fell we thought the Stock Exchange had been hit but then learned the truth.
When the second tower fell it was incredible. I likened the atmosphere outside our building as Pompeii was like when Vesuvius exploded. The winds were blowing from the west and all the debris and dust fell on Wall Street west of the Trade Center.
At 2 p.m. the building announced they were shutting down all services and so we made wet breathing cloths from rags and left the building amidst the incredible fallout. We walked north to Canal Street in total disbelief that these great buildings were no longer there and only a tower of smoke and fire was left.
I finally got home to the upper West Side via the A Train which was running from Canal. The mood on the subway was totally surreal. I’ll never forget the experience and so glad I never saw the horror that must have been visible for those closer to the towers.
Richard Gourley,
Savannah
• • •
I was living in Detroit at the time. Woke up for the day, getting the kids ready for school. It was payday for me. I turned on CNN and my first thought was, something crashed into the World Trade Center, why? I was driving when the first tower fell. I had to pull over because I was crying so hard. My God, the people in the towers, the people of New York, my family there. “My God, help them,” was all I could think.
Melinda Hicks, Savannah
• • •
I was teaching a small group reading lesson to second-graders at Brittin Elementary School on Fort Stewart on Sept. 11, 2001. My student-teacher was in the library, where the television was on. She returned to whisper the news to me. She was visibly upset, and, as shocked as I was, I warned her not to alarm the children.
At that time, she said that there were rumors that planes were also on their way to the Sears Tower. A few minutes later, teachers were all called into the hallway. The assistant principal told us what had happened. She instructed us not to tell the students about the attacks. As shaken as we all were, we had to try to keep a normal routine in school for the rest of the day.
The next day, Fort Stewart was locked down. Off-post teachers were late to school because identification was checked, and all cars were searched. Parents held students in the multi-purpose room until teachers straggled in, some as late as 2 p.m. I was only 30 minutes late. When I collected my students and brought them to my classroom, they were anxious and upset.
We all sat on the rug, and I answered their questions as simply and truthfully as I could. One boy asked what we could do if a plane flew over the school.
I told the children that the president said that only the good planes could fly today. If he heard an airplane, he could be sure that it was a good airplane. Children want to believe that adults can keep them safe from harm, and they liked the idea that the president could keep the bad airplanes away.
Barbara Kirschner, Richmond Hill
• • •
After waking up around 9:30 a.m. to a phone call from a family member telling me what happened — and momentarily calming fears that my future wife was safe and sound, having boarded a plane Sept. 10 — I called Savannah Morning News Planning Editor Steve Austin to tell him I was on my way.
Racing into the newsroom from my southside home, I saw features planning editor Stephen Komives was already piecing together the front page of an “Extra” section that would be going to press as soon as possible. Every television was on cable news, with images of the smoking towers filling every screen on the second floor of the Morning News building on Bay Street.
My roommate and coworker, Anthony “Connie” Conroy, joined us soon after to help me put together inside pages. Everyone stopped and watched in silence after the first tower fell.
The “Extra” was going to press — early in the afternoon, as I recall — but because it was designer Andrew Ryan’s turn to do the front page for the Sept. 12 edition, Connie and I helped in the best way we could: We grabbed stacks of “Extras” and headed out to Bay Street in front of the Morning News building. I took the north side; he took the south.
For a brief moment, perhaps an hour, we almost forgot the breadth and enormity of the tragedy. We were old-time newsboys, hawking papers like it was the Depression. Cars were stopping and buying copies for 50 cents — sometimes forgoing change — and we ripped through the stacks in no time, freeing us to head back up to the newsroom to work through deadline, past midnight.
It wasn’t until the night was over and we could leave that we stopped and thought about the day. Connie and I paused at graphic artist Drew Martin’s house, which was on the way to our apartment.
We actually watched the news, instead of edited it. And quietly, I cried.
Joshua Gillin,
St. Petersburg, Fla.
• • •
The Southside Fire Department took two K9 search/rescue dogs to assist in search and rescue in New York City. Shortly after they returned to Savannah, Molly died from smoke inhalation and her handler retired. Just a couple of weeks ago the other dog, Capt. Morgan, died of old age. Capt. Morgan’s handler was Lt. John Frank and her owner was Dee Morton. A memorial brick was placed at Hospice Savannah’s Rainbow Bridge for Molly some time ago. Two weeks ago a brick was ordered for Capt. Morgan. These donations were anonymous.
Beth Logan, Savannah
• • •
My son, Maclane Matsuoka who was in eighth grade at Calvary Baptist Day School at the time wrote this to fit Psalm 23 in remembrance of 9/11:
The Lord is our shepherd we shall not live in terror;
He maketh me lie down in trust each night,
He leadeth us to live by faith. He restoreth our souls:
He leadeth us in the paths of terrorists for His name sake.
Yeah, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
we will fear no evil, for Thou art with us.
Thou preparest our country’s army in the presence of our enemies:
thou coverest our heads with your grace, my thankfulness runneth over.
Surely if we turn to our God; His goodness and mercy
shall follow us all the days of our lives and
we will remember 9/11 forever.
Jenni Matsuoka, Savannah
I was the online editor at Savannahnow.com. Tuesday morning was the director’s meeting and after hearing that a plane had hit “the trade center,” they all went outside to look at the new trade center across the river.
Then the TVs came on and we saw what was happening. At first it seemed like just a horrible accident, then the other plane hit, then the other two. We spent the rest of the day making manual site updates based on what we could gather since the web was pretty much at a standstill.
Everyone was glued to the TVs. No one knew whether this was the end or what, what might be coming next.
Jason Parker, Atlanta
2001 had been a good year for the construction industry. We were framing houses in Stonewater, a Pooler subdivision off Pine Barren Road. Slabs were poured every few days and we were happy to be so busy.
On Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, we had scheduled a lumber package for a new start. I love Day One of new home construction. The crew arrives to a bare slab and a couple of stacks of lumber in the morning, and by quitting time the outline of a house has changed the whole aspect of the landscape. Little did we know that by the end of this day, four coordinated acts of destruction would alter the whole aspect of the American landscape.
Around 9 a.m. we were rolling along, prepping everything in readiness to start building the walls. The mood was high-spirited, filled with ribald joking and general cutting the fool. The radio blared, periodically drowned out by the sound of the saws. I was on my hands and knees laying out the wall plates when one of the fellows said, “Did you hear that? I think the news guy just said a plane crashed into the World Trade Center!”
With no other detail, we assumed some small plane pilot had miscalculated his altitude with a tragic but small-scale result. There were jokes about blind or drowsy pilots. Then more information started coming in. Another jet. Another. Another. The towers fell. The Pentagon was in flames. No survivors in a Pennsylvania field. The sky became silent as every flight was cancelled.
Our mood turned sober as we went about our work, half-believing the reports. We had no access to a TV, no visual corroboration to what we were hearing, but we knew that if what they were saying was true, it was beyond imagination.
I drove home that afternoon listening to incessant news coverage. I walked in my front door, sat down in front of the TV and stared at footage of the destruction. The horrible magnitude set in, and I shut myself in the bedroom for a few minutes and wept.
I’m not known for being a softy (I’m a hardened construction guy, for goodness sake!), but I couldn’t help but weep in sympathy for the dead. I also wept over the display of such cruelty, over the depths of the human capacity for violence and hatred. I wept because I suspected more lives would be lost over this event, as America predictably sought retaliation when the attackers became known.
In the days following, as flights resumed, I noticed an inner anxiety every time a plane flew overhead. Others revealed to me the same reaction. More anxiety came when basic American freedoms, such as the freedom of privacy, were sacrificed in the pursuit of the terrorists.
As days rolled into years, America went to war and my suspicion that more violence was in store proved true. I saw hatred well up in my fellow Americans — not just a concern for justice, but utter, snarling hatred. We killed and were killed, and so the age-old round of violence continues unbroken. Profound sadness over the inevitable results of hatred and the human tendency to react in kind: this is what I remember every Sept. 11.
Jeff Newport, Savannah
On Sept. 11, 2001, I was scheduled to work the 11-8 shift at the West Chatham branch library, so I was enjoying a leisurely morning, watching “The Today Show.”
Matt Lauer had been interviewing someone (my memory of who it was was wiped out by the unfolding events.) Suddenly, Matt interrupted the interview to show a video they had just received from a man who had been filming a class lecture, with the twin towers in the background. That was the first video of the first, smaller plane hitting the first tower, and the feeling was that it must have been an accident. NBC then switched to a live view of the tower, and moments later, the second, larger plane hit, and we knew in that horrible instant that this was not an accident.
At that time, I was in the habit of videotaping anything I felt might be interesting or historic, and ordinarily, I would have been frantically searching for a piece of tape. But I was so transfixed by all of it that I didn’t think about taping it for at least an hour. At some point I called the library (they had not heard about it) and told them to turn on the TV in the workroom. I told them I would be a little late for work. I must have called family members, but have no memory of it.
In the days that followed, I had trouble getting to sleep. I would find myself thinking about those poor people in the towers, and picture myself running down the stairs and out of the building. Then I would think about the people on the planes. The thought of the fear they experienced, their last frantic calls to loved ones, and in some cases their heroic efforts to prevent more deaths and the destruction of our government buildings in Washington - all of it was just too much to absorb, and impossible to reconcile.
About a week later, it was revealed that the hijackers had used library computers to communicate with each other. There were some scary moments in the next few months, when strange, Middle Eastern-looking men came in to use the computer. The branch is just off Interstate 95 in Pooler so is easily accessed by anyone traveling up and down the East Coast. While I try very hard not to be prejudiced against any group of people, it was hard not to have a certain amount of “racial profiling” in those frightening days.
After 10 years, and several potential attacks that were averted only by accident, after the person had boarded a plane, it is apparent that our government has been painfully slow in ensuring our safety and that history may very well repeat itself. Our enemy is most likely not in Iraq or Afghanistan but right here in our own backyard.
Elaine Dasher, Guyton
I was the online editor at Savannahnow.com. Tuesday morning was the director’s meeting and after hearing that a plane had hit “the trade center,” they all went outside to look at the new trade center across the river.
Then the TVs came on and we saw what was happening. At first it seemed like just a horrible accident, then the other plane hit, then the other two. We spent the rest of the day making manual site updates based on what we could gather since the web was pretty much at a standstill.
Everyone was glued to the TVs. No one knew whether this was the end or what, what might be coming next.
Jason Parker, Atlanta
My son, Maclane Matsuoka who was in eighth grade at Calvary Baptist Day School at the time wrote this to fit Psalm 23 in remembrance of 9/11:
The Lord is our shepherd we shall not live in terror;
He maketh me lie down in trust each night,
He leadeth us to live by faith. He restoreth our souls:
He leadeth us in the paths of terrorists for His name sake.
Yeah, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
we will fear no evil, for Thou art with us.
Thou preparest our country’s army in the presence of our enemies:
thou coverest our heads with your grace, my thankfulness runneth over.
Surely if we turn to our God; His goodness and mercy
shall follow us all the days of our lives and
we will remember 9/11 forever.
Jenni Matsuoka, Savannah
The Southside Fire Department took two K9 search/rescue dogs to assist in search and rescue in New York City. Shortly after they returned to Savannah, Molly died from smoke inhalation and her handler retired. Just a couple of weeks ago the other dog, Capt. Morgan, died of old age. Capt. Morgan’s handler was Lt. John Frank and her owner was Dee Morton.
A memorial brick was placed at Hospice Savannah’s Rainbow Bridge for Molly some time ago. Two weeks ago a brick was ordered for Capt. Morgan. These donations were anonymous.
Beth Logan, Savannah
I have written a couple of poems about 9/11. I most certainly do remember that day so well, and how I thought at first the announcement was some sort of hoax. For a brief few moments I also did not know if my son-in-law was in danger. He and my daughter were living in London at the time and I knew she had told me that he had to travel to Washington that week and I could not remember the day. Well, he was fine, and that was all good, at least for us.
Then I began to remember the few stories my father told me about his being at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. America had been attacked then and it was being attacked again, and as the days unfolded I just could not imagine the sights and sounds on TV. I wrote the first poem then. The second came a few years later as I heard a commentator say that we should never forget what had happened. I know we must move forward, but we should never forget.
I Shall Never Forget
Remembering 9/11/01
Forget, no I haven’t forgotten;
And I pray that I never will.
The horror of that September morning
Is etched in my memory still.
The years pass and time edges on;
Our busyness gets in the way;
But the wounds inflicted upon us
Remain unhealed to this day.
Whatever your stance on the issues;
Whether or not you think we should fight,
Americans have always been faithful
To guard what is honest and right.
The sacrifices made have been many,
And those who have answered the call
To protect this great nation we live in
Have given so much - even all.
Forever I’ll remember the lost ones;
Be grateful for those who serve still.
Forget, no I haven’t forgotten
And I pray that I never will.
The People of America
A Reflection on 9/11/01
That fateful day in September
When the walls came tumbling down,
The enemy thought he had crushed us
Beneath the stones on the ground.
But America is not a building,
We’re a people proud and free,
Born of strength and courage,
And conceived in liberty.
Though we may for a while be shaken,
Our resolve is stronger than ever,
And we will emerge a nation
Bound even closer together.
The glue that is used to cement us
Is made with goodness and love,
And faith in a caring Father
Who shields us from above.
We mourn for those who are suffering,
Those who lost their lives needlessly,
And for those who’ll forever be changed
By this senseless tragedy.
But we’ll shout for the heroes among us,
And for oneness in purpose and deed,
As we pledge to go forward together,
One people, one race, and one creed.
Janis Comer, Savannah
I was looking forward to my first visit to the fabled Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees play the Boston Red Sox. I had been to many Major League Baseball games, but most took place in either St. Louis or Chicago, near my home in Central Illinois. This would be the ultimate game, and I was looking forward to exiting the tunnel for my first view of the interior of the stadium under the lights of a night game. As luck would have it a torrential rain arrived just in time to ruin our tailgate party and the chance to see a game I had looked forward to for months.
The next morning I arranged for a driver to pick me up early at my hotel to catch an early flight from Newark Airport back to Chicago and then home. I was traveling on business and the rained-out game was to be the finale of my trip, or so I thought. The morning was perfectly clear and pretty chilly; however, no traffic or inclement weather should make for an uneventful trip back home.
Arriving early at the airport I went to the American Airlines Admirals Club for a cup of coffee. Leaving the club to board my flight I heard Matt Lauer and Katie Couric announce that a plane had struck the Twin Towers. I looked at the Manhattan skyline from the main concourse serving American Airlines and sure enough there was smoke pouring out of the North Tower.
I had to board my plane, but before I left the concourse I took a small camera out of my briefcase and snapped photos of what I initially assumed was a small plane accident. Once on board the plane for a few minutes, the captain advised us of a brief air traffic control delay and told us we could go back out into the waiting area of the concourse. I watched a television in a café by the gate as another plane apparently hit the previously untouched South Tower. Immediately the travelers standing around me realized what I had just come to conclude: Our country was under attack.
Shortly thereafter, the South Tower collapsed - I snapped more pictures - and the airport evacuation calls came across the public address system. Thousands of people, passengers, flight crews and airport staff were ordered outside the airport. The next several hours were a blur of speculation, terror and frenzy as people tried to figure out the extent of what was happening and how it would affect them, both short-term and long-term.
Finally I was successful in getting access to a cellular line and made arrangements for an unexpected extension of my trip. Only when I was able to access my voice mail, several hours later, did I realize that my wife, children and other family members were panicked and that my whereabouts were unknown for several hours. For several years after that trip I realized that although I was unable to see two historic teams in an epic stadium, I witnessed something that would change millions of lives forever. A baseball game now seemed trivial. Thursday I left the hotel at 6 a.m. and was relieved and sad to see the New York skyline in the rearview mirror of my rental car.
Greg Stinson, Savannah
9/11
Concepts of modern ingenuity
Colliding in a bright, full day
Meant to celebrate Mom’s life.
Terror raining with volcanic force
Of sound, smoke,
Stone, steal,
Fire
And bodies
On more victims below.
Igniting not just fear
But purpose and certainty.
Building not division
But a new unity and awareness.
No longer my Mom’s day.
No longer just America’s way
But a mourning for souls passing
And a celebrating of those surviving.
Viewing now with a global perspective
And divine, prophetic sight:
A new world,
More small and dangerous
Marching head-high to the final Revelation.
Kenneth Eugene, Savannah
I spent the night of the 10th of September with my daughter in Alexandria, Va. I was preparing to play in the USTA sanctioned national tennis 75s tournament. My daughter, Julie Brasfield, had offered to warm me up at her country club early in the morning before playing my match at 10 a.m. As we concluded our practice session, Julie wanted to introduce her tennis couch to me.
We entered the tennis facility and were immediately drawn to a TV set. It told us that a plane had hit the World Trade Center and that another plane had just now hit the other tower. Julie and I raced to the car and she decided to take the short route back to Alexandria, which would put us very close to the Pentagon.
The car radio continued to describe the double disasters at the World Trade Center. When we rounded the curve in full view of the Pentagon, we saw a small amount of smoke coming from the great five-sided building. It was some little time until the radio announced that the Pentagon had been attacked. We raced to her home and glued ourselves to TV. A number of people who telephoned my daughter had no knowledge of the attacks. I ignored a message from the tennis tournament official that advised me that I was due to play in a few minutes. Actually, the tournament continued all week because the players from around the country could not fly home.
I did not learn until much later that a friend of mine in the tournament playing his early round match had witnessed the plane attacking the Pentagon flying directly over the tennis court with its doomed passengers fully visible to the tennis players. The Army-Navy Club is not more than a mile from the Pentagon.
C. Lee Butler, Savannah
I grew up in New York City in the borough of Manhattan, then Queens as a teenager and college student. I went to elementary school, high school and began college in Manhattan and except for two years in the Army, college in Buffalo, N.Y., and a six-month stint in London, spent most of my life in and around the New York metropolitan area. First in Manhattan, then Queens, New Jersey suburbs and finally Hoboken, N.J.
On Sept, 11, 2001, I was an entrepreneur selling printing and imaging products and services to numerous businesses in the New York-New Jersey area. The start of my day usually involved going to pick up mail at the post office near Hoboken’s waterfront and the Erie Lackawanna Train and Ferry station and PATH station on Hoboken’s waterfront.
As I emerged from my building I noticed a large group of people gathered across the street pointing at the sky. I crossed the street and quickly found that a plane had hit one of the Trade Center buildings. I went back to my apartment to get my DAT camera and proceeded to Pier A on Hoboken’s waterfront. By the time I arrived another plane had hit the second building and thousands of people were emerging from the PATH and Erie Lackawanna train stations. Most of them gravitated to Pier A, a large, previously dilapidated pier that had been renovated for use as a park-like amenity for the city.
The view from the pier was unbelievable. Fire and huge plumes of smoke rose from the World Trade Center. By that time it was evident that this was not an airplane mishap but an orchestrated attack. Many people were huddled together in groups praying, crying or simply stunned into silence watching the spectacle unfold.
The group I was with was surprisingly confident that within several months the Trade Centers would be repaired and life would go on. That is until the first building pancaked.
It is hard to describe accurately the collective wail that went up and the emotions I was feeling. It had to be one of the most chilling and dreadful days of my life. At that time no one knew how many people had successfully escaped the damage. We thought that perhaps tens of thousands had been killed in the one building alone.
I left the pier and went to the police station a few blocks away to add my name to a growing list of volunteers. By that time the second tower had collapsed. I was told to return to the train station around 2 p.m. to help man triage stations that would be set up. With nothing to do until then I decided to bicycle up and down the waterfront taking photos and movies from various spots. I was able to get shots all along the waterfront from Weehawken to Jersey City. When I returned to the PATH station at 2 p.m. to help with triage it was evident that there wasn’t much to do. The majority of people in the towers had escaped and the injuries were being handled by New York City hospitals. Amazingly, fewer than 3,000 people had been killed.
I have only attempted to view that DAT tape once, probably five years later, and didn’t have the desire to see the whole thing.
My wife Karen and I had already found Savannah and planned to move here in our retirement. We had persuaded Karen’s parents, who lived near San Diego, to move to Savannah and that we would retire here later. On 9/11, Karen was in California helping her folks pack, sell their home and move to Savannah. She had been there for over a month. Immediately after the attack there was no way to phone out. Karen was able to contact me on my cell phone. When we spoke I told her that I felt we should pull the plug and move out of the “bullseye” called New York City.
As a young person I had experienced the Mad Bomber in the 1950s, nail bombing of The Electric Circus in 1970 (one of my favorite nightclubs), the bombing at LaGuardia Airport in 1975 and an attack by the Puerto Rican nationalist group FALN on Fraunce’s Tavern also in 1975. This followed by the bombing of New York City banks and other facilities by anti Vietnam demonstrators during the war, as well as all the other nuts who took their frustrations out on New York City including the “Son of Sam” and the first attack on the Trade Center’s North Tower garage in 1993. At that time, and leading up to 9/11, I was often in and out of the World Trade Center as I called on clients in the downtown area. In fact I was in the World Trade Center shopping mall the day before the event.
We did accomplish our mission, moving to Savannah in June 2002 and continue to love living here while enjoying a serene and productive life style. We still love visiting New York City but wouldn’t want to live anywhere near there.
Tom Macek, Savannah
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I was awakened about 6:15 a.m. (West Coast time) by a phone call from a friend in South Carolina telling me about a fire at the World Trade Center in New York.
I immediately turned on the TV and was horrified to see what appeared on the screen. I watched as a plane crashed into one of the towers.
My son joined me in front of the TV and we found ourselves mesmerized by the horror we saw unfolding before our eyes. We tried to console each other, but to no avail. We sat in front of the TV for the remainder of the day and for the next several days, trying to make sense of what we were witnessing.
The most horrendous thing was to see people jumping out of the buildings (to a certain death), in an attempt to avoid the fire, the crumbling buildings and the chaos.
Those pictures are imbedded in my memory, and on each anniversary date, they resurface anew. I am sure that they will remain for the rest of my life.
Stella Wilson, Savannah
The attacks occurred during my planning period at Windsor Forest High School, and from that time on my thoughts of these events have taken on a surreal quality. It is a defining moment in my memory, as were the assassinations of JFK and MLK, and the Challenger explosion - events that forever changed the way I thought about my world and the safety I could rely on.
I lived my life until college 50 miles from New York City, and then lived in Pennsylvania. I continue to visit these places regularly, and at the time of the attack I felt a personal devastation and loss of these places I love. I have friends and relatives who live and work in New York City and the Pentagon, and the space of time during which their whereabouts were not known was filled with fear.
Returning to my classroom, I turned on my television for more news and spent the day with my 11th-grade students. These young adults represented at least 10 countries and many states, and they all had a connection to the places that were attacked. Many had relatives in Washington, D.C., or New York City that they would visit during vacation. Some had lived in these cities, and some first saw the United States by plane when their families emigrated here.
I shared with them that my grandparents first saw this country when their boat landed at Ellis Island, and how the Statue of Liberty was that generation’s symbol of freedom and a new life. There was no talk of religion or race or national origin as we all realized our bonds as humans were stronger than the categories we use to define ourselves. When I think of that day, I remember with love and pride the outpouring of concern these young people had for one another’s families and friends, their love of country and each other.
Lisa Callahan, Tybee Island
I had just arrived at work at the Bull Street Library and was working quietly in my office. A coworker came running into my office saying, “They have attacked the Trade Center.”
In my mind, I was seeing the trade center in Savannah and wondering why anyone would attack it. She quickly told me it was the Twin Towers in New York and that someone had flown airplanes into them. For the next few days, I felt overwhelmed with sadness, disbelief and fear of the future.
Since that day I have continued to feel overwhelmed by the things that have happened: two wars to fight terror, terrorists attacks in Europe and other places, the overthrow of long-established governments, to name a few.
This anniversary lets me know that we need to keep diligent, alert and ready for what might happen, but we cannot live in fear. We must go on living a good life for the sakes of the next generations. We must remain patriotic and true to our nation. And, above all, we must never lose our trust in God.
Diane Wilhelm, Guyton
I was in the corridor of a pricey hotel in Monterey, Calif., about to check out. People were gathered around TV sets. “What’s going on?”
“Planes hit the World Trade Center and the towers fell.”
“Oh, you have the wrong building”, said I, the New York cynic said, “You mean a different building.”
The man said nothing and simply outstretched his arm toward the TV. I was horrified by what I saw and sank to my knees. I thought of my son, who could have, possibly, gone to “the city” to meet with his two friends, brothers John & Paul. I was beyond relieved to hear his voice. But he was in great distress; although he was able to reach John who managed to escape before the towers fell, no one had heard from Paul. Paul was employed by Cantor Fitzgerald and he was one of the 700 employees lost.
John, devastated, bewildered and in shock walked from Manhattan to his Babylon, Long Island, home, reaching there about 6 p.m. covered in his brother’s ashes. Paul’s remains have not been identified and are lost forever from his mother, brothers and sisters, wife and three children, the last child born one month after that horrific day.
The 10th anniversary means a couple of things to me. First, I must say that as horrified as I was, I was also not surprised at an attack on New York.
The terrorists struck those buildings before, they struck the Cole ship and there were other attacks on the U.S. I, in fact, partially blame ourselves and our careless system for not being more diligent in protecting us. Of course, had restrictions been in place before the fact, there would have been a public outcry for the government’s infringement on “my rights.” Well, our laissez faire attitude resulted in this horrific loss. The terrorists took advantage of our complacence; they watched while we danced.
Second, Ground Zero seems to be taking much too long for rebuilding and I blame this on politics. For instance, why should the little church destroyed still be waiting for rebuilding approval? That church was there since 1916, they own the property. Those skyscrapers went up around the church. Employees from the area, no matter what their faith, Christian and non-Christian, would stop in the church before going on to their workday. How many visited the church the morning of 9/11? But still, the church struggles to be rebuilt. Why? Because of, in my opinion, political football.
So, I feel these 10 long years have proven to be another injustice to the working men and women who lost their lives that infamous day. In spite of all this, however, their memorial is waiting, the church will be built and we will all visit, reflect and pray to God we and the world never again experience a 9/11.
God Bless.
Loretta Janelis, Bluffton, S.C.
At the time I was living in Manhattan and working at the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum which is housed on a World War II aircraft carrier parked in the Hudson River.
I was on the No. 50 crosstown bus three blocks from work when the bus dispatcher called the driver and said a plane had hit the World Trade Center towers and that lower Manhattan was closed off. There had been plenty of scares from near-misses before – small planes of sightseers getting too close to the towers – so everyone on the bus thought the same thing this was a case of one finally hitting the towers.
But as the bus turned down the West Side Highway from 50th, the smoke furling from the area of the towers spoke of something far more tragic. And everyone got a little dry in the throat. It wasn’t until I went up on the flight deck and looked down the Hudson toward the towers that the enormity of what was occurring slammed home. This is the downside of working in a museum dedicated to the history of war.
A huge hole – much bigger than what the impact of a small plane would cause – gaped in the side of one tower.
All the Intrepid’s executives and managers (of which I was one) were summoned to a meeting in the Officers Mess. The Mess boasted a picture window looking right down the Hudson at the towers. Our President, Lt. Gen. Martin R. Steele – recently retired from the Pentagon – told us unequivocally that we were under attack by terrorists. As we sat looking out the window, there was a flash in the sky and the second tower went down.
I thought about what my mother once told me – something as an American I clung to like a right – about how the United States would always be safe from attack because there were oceans on either side of us. But here we were – being attacked.
A young man from the maintenance crew ran into the Mess screaming: “They bombed Washington, D.C., I’m getting out of here.”
Gen. Steele asked us to bring all our staff members to the Howard Lutnick Theater for a briefing. The theater, a recently added showpiece for the museum, had been funded by Mr. Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. Paradoxically – the tower floor which sustained the first hit was two floors below that of Cantor Fitzgerald. Many of the bright young things who were at their desks that morning had become familiar to us.
When we assembled in the theater a few minutes later it was to the whine of planes streaking low across the sky overhead. Every few minutes a loud thump reverberated through the ship. When Gen. Steele appeared, he was in uniform and accompanied by men wearing dark blue windbreakers printed with the initials FBI and CIA.
“What you hear are helicopters landing on the flight deck,” Steele said. “The Intrepid has been turned over to the FBI and the CIA. We don’t know what is happening but we are going to proceed as though we are at war. You can stay on the ship – we have cots and food enough for everyone. If however, you leave the ship – you will not be allowed to return. There is no guarantee what you will find off the ship. Here, you will be safe.”
My dad was on a Liberty ship in World War II. I had a cousin who was in Korea, another cousin, as well as guys I went to high school with, served in Vietnam. War stories were common fare in our home. And with Hollywood having spun out so many war movies, one enjoys a certain complaisance as to exactly what they’ll do, when and if the time ever comes, to make the right decision when confronted by a war situation. The truth for me was my insides shivered like cold Jell-O. It’s scary! Very scary! And there’s no hindsight, no real information, no script to rely on.
There was no question of staying on the ship. My son, a recent college graduate, was living not far from the towers. I had a dog at home who hated loud noise. Another manager – Yousef – asked if he could leave with me. He was afraid that anyone seeing his Mid-Eastern demeanor would take him for the enemy and attack him. Karen, Steele’s secretary who lived not far from me (on the Upper East Side) left with us. Of course public transportation was completely shut down. We were about four miles from home. Manhattan had been locked down. No traffic entered, none came in.
Exiting the ship, we found the West Side Highway a parade of people, some caked with white dust from the towers. The air smelled of chemicals. I remember one mother pushing a baby carriage while her toddler ran alongside begging to know what was happening. At times the sound of the fighter jets overhead was so loud you couldn’t hear anything else. Having watched numerous military tactical displays – I readily identified F-16, the F-22s, etc.
Every restaurant we passed, every bar had a TV going. Pictures of the towers falling, repeated over and over again. On one thing they were silent. In years gone by, other buildings in New York have collapsed, and always the news cameras showed the displaced survivors staggering out in the arms of firemen and police, eager to tell their first-person experience to the reporters covering the event. New Yorkers are survivors and proud of it. Now there was just eerie silence about survivors and pretty soon we realized there were no survivors.
We kept to the side streets and shadows but then got to Central Park. We had to walk across open ground - across the Meadows. I felt vulnerable.
Because the cell phone transmitter on top of the towers was gone, even though I had a land line, it was impossible to know my son’s whereabouts. Picking up the receiver all I heard was a busy signal. I was getting ready to walk down to where he lived, when finally he called from a pay phone. (Note there are no longer pay phones.) To this day I still have a land line. Luckily he had slept in that morning, and was nowhere near the towers.
Everyone knew someone who worked in the towers. There wasn’t a neighborhood street that didn’t have a wreath, a ribbon, a flag, a candle, a handful of flowers in a jar outside one doorway or another.
For months, whenever a plane coming in to land at LaGuardia flew in a little too close, my guts would get that Jell-O feeling It’s not really scared – it’s just an uncontrollable tremor that jumps up and you have to force it to be still.
I think we missed the boat, running off to war the way we did. For a while there the whole world stopped hating us. We had a chance to say – let’s makes sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Let’s make world peace happen.
I can’t help but feel sorry for those innocent people whose country is torn up to find a few madmen. No child should grow up afraid.
Let’s face it – I have moles in my lawn – but that doesn’t mean I tear up the lawn to eradicate them.
Deirdre Kindthistle, Savannah
I had moved from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., on Sept. 9 to start a new career with the State Department as a Foreign Service Officer. On 9/11, 98 of us new officers were in our second day of orientation when we were told about the attacks and sent home for the day. I lived closer to Washington than the training center and the main roads into D.C. were blocked off.
I had to drive up and down back streets to find my way to my apartment building, driving my car with its bumper sticker: “I (Heart) Afghanistan.” I had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan 30 years before. I had to park my car on the street as the way to my apartment building was blocked off also, and I was so afraid that someone would see the bumper sticker and trash my car, but that didn’t happen.
I was shocked, and wondering if I’d made a huge mistake moving to D.C. and starting a job with the federal government. We all returned to training the next day, however, and I stayed with State for five years.
Nancy Cunningham, Savannah
My Aunt Judy Burk, who was up from Fernandina and driving to our farm out in Wayne County with my Uncle Lonnie O’Quinn, called me at my office.
“Helen, hurry - turn the TV on! Something’s not right - a plane has hit the World Trade Center. We just heard it on the radio.”
And so we all gathered around the office TV with its rabbit ear antennas, and thru the fuzz on the screen, we then saw the second plane hit the building. Attorney Tracy Brown had come down to see us, and when he saw the second plane hit he said in a prophetic voice, “Do y’all realize the economic impact that this will have on us for a long, long time?”
I could not concentrate or do any work the rest of the day - every sound outside our building unnerved me. None of us knew what was going on or what to expect. Later that day, my cousin Beth Hatton was hosting a DAR meeting at her house. I called her after lunch and said to her, “I guess you are going to cancel our meeting since all this has happened.” And in a voice that resounded with the indomitable American spirit, she said to me most profoundly: “We are certainly not going to cancel our meeting! This is just what they want - these terrorists - they want us to give up and not fight - and we are not giving up and we are going to have our meeting!”
And all of a sudden, thru that wisdom and the call to arms that she expressed to me, my whole attitude changed - I became a renewed American patriot all over again with a passionate sense of patriotic purpose and a love of our country and our people - realizing that no matter what we had to face in the coming days we would not falter, we would be strong and we would not let anyone - anyone - defeat us or our beloved country. And after that, for many nights, I would walk outside alone and look at the stars for a long, long time and wonder if I was seeing them for the last time, not knowing what the days ahead would bring.
Helen Aberle, Jesup
We still lived in Seville, Ohio. It was a beautiful clear day. I remember Matt Lauer on “The Today Show,” interrupting the program to report the first plane hitting the tower. At first, it seemed like an accident, then the anxiety doubled and tripled as the events unfolded.
But the emotion that I remember feeling that day was anger and steely resolve, and the sure knowledge that the terrorists, who hoped to break us, had made a big mistake. They had caused us to band together in a strong, fearless and resolute unit.
Susan Blashford, Pooler
As most of us do, I remember very well where I was on that fateful September day in 2001. I was in the hospital in Orlando, Fla., recovering from surgery, and I was walking down the hall with a staff member. A nurse came up to us and told the other staffer that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.
I went back to my room and watched on TV as events unfolded. I was especially shocked, as I knew a woman who worked at the World Trade Center, an employee of Cantor Fitzgerald. Later, my daughter-in-law called to tell me that the woman, Colleen, had been killed. Colleen was her best friend. Colleen was only in her twenties. She had gone to work early to show her co-workers her new wedding ring. She had been found in a collapsed stairwell.
As for what this event means to me, I’ve tried to put it all down in a poem, which I’ve dedicated to Colleen:
She was a wife for just one year;
had some people she held dear - brother, husband and her parents too.
As her friends, we always knew she was someone special who
deserved so much which that day took away.
We never knew we’d have to say goodbye so soon. Beautiful, smart, her whole life before her--
everyone she knew adored her.
But, you know, we can’t forget, words can’t say what we regret.
There are three words that somehow soothe the soul--
Gerinomo, Let’s Roll.”
Jean Caldwell, Garden City
Well, my memories are a little different. September 11th, my father, Doug Sahlberg, and his K9, Molly, were registered through FEMA. They worked with the Southside Fire Department and were called to go to New York to search for people who were trapped. While he was there for the first 12 days, I’ll never forget my mother getting a call from one of the chiefs to prepare herself, that they had lost radio contact for several hours and weren’t sure if he’d be coming back out of the rubble.
Luckily he did, but not too long afterward his partner and best friend Molly died. Her memorial is at J.F. Gregory Park in Richmond Hill, where my father is now a detective for the city. But 9/11 changed our lives. My father will say he’s not a hero, but he is in our eyes!
Alisha Zeise, Savannah
In August 2001, my husband and I delivered our oldest child, Jay, to Washington, D.C. I was bursting with pride that he would be attending Georgetown University, but it was far from easy when we actually had to turn around and drive home without him.
In the days that followed, I began to get used to the idea that he was growing up and that he could be as safe in our nation’s capital as he was here in Richmond Hill.
A few weeks later, on Sept. 11, even though I am a news junkie, I wasn’t watching television that morning. I had turned off the set to study of a test I had at AASU later that day. I even rode into Savannah without the radio on, so when I arrived at the door to the classroom at 10 a.m. I was confused by all the commotion. Someone told me about the plane hitting the Twin Towers and then she said, “They just hit the Pentagon.”
I collected my books and bag and asked my classmate to tell the professor I had to leave. My son lived just a few miles from the Pentagon. I had to talk with him. What followed were frantic phone calls between my husband and me as I drove home. Neither of us could reach him.
I got home, turned on the news and watched it all over and over again. Still Jay would not answer his phone.
Finally, around 11:30 a.m. he picked up the phone and said, “What’s going on? Why is everyone calling me?”
He had been sound asleep through the whole thing. I told him what had happened and urged him to go and find out what the school was advising students to do and to call me back as soon as possible. I remember that I didn’t want to hang up the phone. I did not want to let go of him now that I heard his voice, but I told him I loved him and let him go again.
We talked a few more times during the day. The university shut down the campus and advised students to stay put.
I picked my other two children up early from school, as did many parents that day. We needed to be together. I needed to tell them what was going on. We were all scared.
Later, Jay called and said that he was sitting on the back patio of one of the Georgetown dorms overlooking the Potomac watching the Pentagon burn. He was so far away and so young, but he was OK and he was growing up faster than any of us expected.
Jay is now an attorney living in Washington. Since 9/11, while living in the city he has experienced the D.C. sniper, a hurricane, last month’s earthquake and finally, late last month, Hurricane Irene.
Ellen Parker, Richmond Hill
I was working in my family’s construction business and was headed to the post office and heard on the radio about a plane crash at the World Trade Center. I saw our local newspaper owner and wondered if he had heard anything. I got back to my office and ask our bookkeeper to turn the radio on the station that was reporting everything. In our small office the only way to get the news was by radio-no television in our office.
The first time I saw on television was not until around 3:30 and boy what pictures can put into perspective what we only heard via the radio. It will be a day I will never forget and I have two friends that have 9/11 birthday’s and I told one of them that to me their birthday date will never be the same.
Pam Langston, Vidalia
On the day of 9/11, I was enjoying a day off from my part-time job in retail sales and drinking coffee on my front porch. When I went inside to get a refill, my son, who had been watching ‘The Today Show,” told me about the first plane hitting the Twin Towers. After the second plane hit, I watched in horror as the Pennsylvania and Pentagon tragedies were revealed.
After the sadness upon realizing that thousands of people were killed, my most initial reaction when news reporters used the word “terrorism” was that this was a wake-up call. With underdeveloped countries hating our “capitalistic” ways, and terrorists trying to bring down our democratic way of life, I suppose their attack on buildings symbolizing capitalism and government seemed to them to be an appropriate choice.
I watched in subsequent days as sales plummeted in the store I worked in, with the mall itself looking deserted. It was as if people were afraid to spend money in fear of more retaliation - as if they were finally, albeit briefly, catching on the message.
It was sad to me that it took such a tragedy for America to understand that the American Dream does not always embrace the words “more,” “bigger,” and “better” and that soldiers are still dying in Afghanistan and Iraq in trying to protect our freedom and way of life.
In succeeding months and years I watched the domino effect take place - spending cutbacks, unemployment, and uncertainty. I, myself, was a victim of the unemployment crises when I spent a year and a half searching for a full-time job.
Gradually, in the next few years, spending got back to a somewhat normal status and the job situation gradually, but briefly, improved.
It was as if America was showing the world that the American Dream was alive and well and were symbolizing it by going back to reckless spending. We now have a recession with high unemployment rates, a national debt in the trillions, foreclosures, and partisan politics in which Congress, whether we agree with what just happened or not, is forcing us to “make do” by initiating budget cuts.
I watch TV programs such as QVC, where women think nothing of paying $200 for handbags, or “Househunters,” where young couples look at $300,000 to $400,000 houses because they somehow think their budget allows them to spend that much on a house.
I am amazed that hardly any real estate in New York City is below $1 million, or that buyers don’t bat an eye when learning the selling price, as I watch “Selling New York.”
With terrorists threatening us from within our country as well as from outside, I wonder how long it will take for another tragedy to take place before Americans truly realize what the terrorists, however wrongly, are trying to tell us about our way of life.
Allen Prall, Savannah
I was raised in Long Island, N.Y., so this hit me hard.
I remember as a teenager taking the train to New York city and going into the Twin Towers while they were filming “King Kong.” I live in Bloomingdale now, and on 9/11 that morning I had just taken my son to school and they were talking about a plane crash in New York City.
When I got home the TV was on and they showed the first plane that hit the towers, then the next. I immediately went to my son’s school and signed him out. I just wanted to be near my children and hold them. I then got on the phone and started calling my cousins (there are six). Two of them worked in the Twin Towers. I could not get anybody.
All phone lines were busy. I called their mother, who lives in Tampa, and she informed me that one of her sons called her right away to let her know that he was fine and that he was walking his way out of the city. We did not hear from the other cousin until later that afternoon, and he had not been in the building at the time.
Our family was blessed. I may not have known anybody who passed away on 9/11, but there is not a day goes by that I don’t think about the brave men and women who lost their lives on that day and pray for them and their families every night.
Gail Bailey, Bloomingdale
On the morning of the attacks, I was at my job at the Army calibration lab at Hunter Army Airfield repairing test equipment. The contract cleanup crew walked in that morning and told us that the World Trade Center had been hit by an airplane.
We then hooked up a television that we had in the lab. We watched as both towers and the Pentagon were hit. At that time, I realized that two of my relatives, Jim and Nancy Choates, worked at the Pentagon. I wondered if they were in the area that got hit.
A few minutes later, the local American Red Cross chapter called and asked if I could be ready to deploy to New York City since I am a volunteer.
We closed down and evacuated the base and I went home and watched TV all day long. I later found out that Jim Choates left his office that morning for a dentist appointment at Walter Reed and his office was destroyed.
Geary Spell, Savannah
We started our honeymoon in New York City just a couple days beforehand and rented a car to drive up to Quebec City, Canada.
On the morning of 9/11, I went to get coffee outside the hotel, and since most people spoke only French it was not until I walked into a coffee shop where I overheard some Americans talking about a plane hitting a skyscraper in New York. I hurried back to the hotel to get better information, and just as I turned on the TV the second plane hit the tower-live on TV.
I just sat there crying in disbelief. It was strange being just across the border and yet feeling so far away from home. We were supposed to fly home from Boston later that week. Since that airport was shut down, we instead kept our rental car and drove safely home from Canada to Tybee Island. Although our wedding anniversary is on 9/1, it is bittersweet to think about our honeymoon on 9/11 and the tragic memories from that day.
Carrie Efird, Tybee Island
The news hit us on that sunny morning while working a chemical spill on Interstate 270 outside of Washington, D.C. While returning back to quarters, a large black cloud appeared in our windshield. We did not know that a third aircraft just went into the Pentagon.
What we had just witnessed would change the lives of firefighters throughout our country. Losing several brother firefighters from FDNY that I personally knew and worked with, has impacted me in many aspects of my life. On that day many of my fellow brothers and sisters responded to assist with the Pentagon attack while we prepared for what we thought was a fourth aircraft coming to D.C. which crashed in Pennsylvania.
On any given day the national capital region is grid locked, but on Sept. 11, 2001, D.C. came to a standstill, including our ability to respond to other emergencies.
I have since retired after 33 years of service and moved to Savannah. Once a firefighter, always a firefighter and will never forget our family members from the FDNY. God Bless America!
Gregory Socks, Savannah
I was the Basic Training Programs Branch Chief for the U.S. Marshals Service’s (USMS) Training Academy at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Glynco (Brunswick), Ga. I grew up in Savannah and worked in the sheriff’s office for six years and in the U.S. marshal’s office for 13 before promoting to a supervisory position at the FLETC. I still live in Savannah.
In September 2001, I was at the Training Academy as a supervisory inspector and instructor at the USMS Training Academy and as such was the class supervisor for Basic Deputy U.S. Marshal training class No. 104, which consisted of 37 students. They reported for basic training on July 23, 2001. About half of them had just gotten out of the military after doing their four-year hitch.
The basic training regimen lasts 10 weeks and is divided into two phrases: one lasting seven weeks and the other three weeks. The students graduated the first phase on Sept. 10, 2001, and had begun their second phase early on the morning of Sept. 11. During the first phase the students qualified to carry their Glock 22 .45-caliber handgun, shotgun, AR-15 rifle and their non-lethal weapons: baton and OC Spray. The reason for explaining this will become evident in a minute.
On the morning of Sept. 11 I was in my office working and halfway paying attention to the morning news, “The Today Show” I believe, when they announced that some type of plane had crashed into the World Trade Center north tower. I had worked in New York City at the UN during the first Gulf War. I was there again a year later for three months during a fugitive operations program the USMS was working with local New York City law enforcement agencies. During those three months I lived in the hotel that connected the two World Trade Center towers. It was called the Vista International then. I was well aware that it was nearly impossible for a plane to accidentally fly into the World Trade Center.
I also recognized from the wing span damage that the plane had to be a large commercial type airplane. In knowing these things, I also knew that it was no accident and that it was a terrorist attack. I ran to the office of the chief of training who was holding a staff meeting and told them to turn on the television. We watched as the second plane flew into the second tower on live TV behind one of the unsuspecting “Today Show” hosts as she was discussing the first strike. We immediately began preparations for the USMS Training Academy instructors and students to deploy to New York City.
The USMS Training Academy has a history of deploying to national disasters as we are the only entity in the USMS that can immediately drop what we are doing and leave with a large number of people and be on site anywhere in the U.S. within a day. There was no doubt we would be called on again by the president to respond to New York City that night or the next day.
That morning the basic class was split in half, training in two different locations on the base. After we watched the second tower collapse we decided to inform the students of what had occurred, end the training and bring the students to the conference room so they could watch the events on the television and wait to see when we would deploy. Although it was a sad and disastrous day, it was also a day that would be historic and probably the most memorable day in most of their lives. We also let them know we would probably be deploying that night or the next day and to start mentally preparing their families and themselves.
I went to the half of the class that was in the shoot-house area doing building entries and “shoot, don’t shoot” scenarios and asked my fellow instructors to halt training and get everyone together. Because those of us at the headquarters building had watched the events in silence all morning without really speaking of what we witnessed, I had not put into words what I had seen. I announced to the class that the U.S. had been attacked by terrorists and the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon had been hit by large commercial airliners. When it came time to tell them that the World Trade Center towers had collapsed, my voice quivered as I tried to get the words out. It is one thing to witness those events and sit in silence and another altogether to reaffirm what you had seen by repeating it to others thereby confirming it. My intimate knowledge of the World Trade Center from my months living there made me personally aware of the thousands of people who work there and the thousands that come and go all day: Especially at that time of the morning. Saying those words meant to me that thousands of people who I had seen daily for three months were dead.
The students and instructors were in shock at once and again unbelieving of something so unimaginable. We transported them to the conference room where the other half of the class was also arriving. They filed in and took seats and watched the unfolding events. We were on standby the rest of that afternoon as we had gotten orders to prepare to leave and were awaiting the arrival of one of our large prisoner transport jets, a 727.
It was grounded in Oklahoma City along with the rest of America’s airplanes both big and small. The Training Academy instructors and managers spent the rest of the day planning our deployment. Early that evening we were told we were being ordered to New York City by the president to assist at the site that had already earned the name “Ground Zero.” The NYPD and firefighters were calling it the “The Pile” by the time we got there. One of our 727s would be allowed to fly to Brunswick the next morning. The students were told to go to their dorm rooms, pack everything up and report back the next morning at 7 a.m.
I stayed at our building until around 10 p.m. helping to finish up the deployment plans for the next day. Since I still lived in Savannah I had a one hour or so commute home. I arrived home that night after 11:30 p.m. and my wife met me at the door. I had kept her abreast of the events all day where she worked and told her early on that I would probably be leaving the next day for several weeks so she could get used to the idea.
We had only been married two years and although I was used to these sudden events, it was the first time for her as she was still in her 20s and her short life had not been exposed to too much tragedy. She was still in shock and the fact that I would be gone in a few hours made the tragedy that much worse and more personal. I packed my deployment bag and we went to bed and talked for a little while and I was gone a few hours later not to return home for five weeks.
I arrived at our headquarters building at the base in Brunswick at 6:30 a.m. and began to coordinate the loading of the student’s deployment bags for the trip over to the Brunswick airport. The plane was finally allowed to leave at sunrise in Oklahoma and landed at the Brunswick airport at 1 p.m. We brought the students into the conference room and the chief of training came in and swore them in.
They were told to raise their rights hands and repeat the oath. As I looked around the room I was astounded at how young they looked. Having many veterans fresh out of active duty in the class gave me comfort but even they were in their mid 20s.
They were issued their handguns and would receive their badges in New York City after they were driven up from Washington, D.C. We loaded onto large buses and made the 10 minute trip to the airport. It was overcast that day in stark contrast to the clear blue day in New York City displayed on the television the day before. I noted that it was appropriate for where we were about to go.
The Brunswick airport is a small airport with commuter airlines servicing it for the major airlines: Not too many large commercial jets coming in there. When we turned into the airport and made it out onto the tarmac it immediately became obvious that even the small airport in Brunswick had been a part of the events of the day before. There before us were four large commercial jets: Two Delta, an American and a United Airlines jet: All the product of the forced landings the day before.
Boarding the USMS jet were 37 students, 22 Training Academy Supervisors and Chiefs and several Deputy U.S. Marshals from surrounding offices who were in the USMS Special Operations Group: In all, about 60 or 70 Deputy U.S. Marshals. Once we began to roll out onto the runway for takeoff, the crews of the commercial airlines began to stroll out of the hangers toward the runway to watch the only non-military airplane in the United States take off that day.
As we rolled down the runway it was clear that we were the center of attention at the airport. Once airborne we turned north and began the trip to New York City. When we passed by the District of Columbia, the Air Force fighter jets flying Combat-Air-Patrol came over to check us out. They hung around for a minute, wagged their wings at us and turned back toward the District of Columbia. As we approached New York City we received the same greeting from the Air Force fighter jets flying Combat-Air-Patrol over New York City.
As anyone who has flown into New York City will tell you, when approaching LaGuardia, incoming commercial flights come in from the south right over Lower Manhattan and right over the Wall Street area. It was no different for us except now there was a big hole in the “canyon” of skyscrapers that dominate the Lower Manhattan financial district. The “hole” was still billowing smoke from the day before and the orange glow of burning fires was still visible over a large area of debris.
We slowly glided in and made the sharp turn to the right and quickly descended into LaGuardia. It was as eerier scene as I had ever seen. It was now night time and the airport was totally shut down with no lights and dozens of darkened commercial jets docked at the gates: Graphic evidence of the previous day’s total shutdown of all U.S. air traffic.
Everyone off-loaded from the airplane and boarded buses for the trip into downtown Manhattan. I had made this trip nearly every evening while hunting fugitives during my three-month stay back in 1991 and always enjoyed spotting the towers from Long Island on the way back into the city and watching them grow as we approached. On this evening there was only a tall, smoky, orange glow coming from where the towers once stood. We were assigned to stay at a hotel downtown about 15 blocks from “Ground Zero” on 7th Avenue.
When we pulled up alongside the hotel on the side street and unloaded, it was right in front of one of the fire stations that had answered the call the day before. It is not like the fire stations in Savannah. These fire stations are like a hole in the wall of high rise buildings on the ground floor. The air was still full of haze and the stench of burned rubber and plastic that covers electrical wires, which was the main source of the still burning fires.
There was already a memorial of flowers being built at the base, a large piece of plywood with photos of nine missing firefighters from that engine company. The firefighters on duty were still stunned as if the incident had just happened. In fact, none had gone home. The remaining members of the engine company who were not on duty at the time of the attack had come in and all were taking turns going down to look for their fellow firefighters lost in the attack.
I had not noticed it when we pulled up nor when we exited the bus but there was a large vehicle behind us that was dark gray in color. After a second look I realized it was a fire truck. It was caked in gray ash in total contrast to the easily recognizable spit-polished red fire engines we are all accustomed to seeing. Right across the street only 30 feet away was a small Catholic Church beneath other tall skyscrapers that would be a forlorn reminder of the tragedy for us every day in the coming weeks.
The “off duty” fire fighters were supposed to be resting and sleeping until it was their turn to return to “The pile,” but none could. They were all up and standing around in the garage area. We spoke to them for a few minutes and offered our condolences and proceeded to check in and go to our rooms and prepare for an ops meeting at 10 p.m. Around 9 p.m. the hotel sounded the alarm for everyone to evacuate the hotel and run south. There was a report that a large truck bomb had been found next to the Empire State Building, which was one block north of us. As I was preparing to leave my room I noticed that CNN had a live view of the darkened Empire State Building announcing that the New York Police Department had found a suspicious truck located at the base of the Empire State Building and was evacuating the area. I had told my wife earlier where we were staying and that we were right around the corner from the Empire State Building. I was worried that if she were watching she would be fearful for my safety. Once I reached the street the police officers were herding everyone south with loud speakers. Those of us in our “raid” uniforms that identified us as law enforcement officers assisted in moving people.
As I was doing this I was trying to call my wife on my cell phone but could not get a line out. Over half of the cell phone capacity for the New York City area was lost when the South Tower and its gigantic phone tower went down. It was this way for the duration of my stay there. I eventually got a line out and spoke to my wife who had heard the reports on CNN and was waiting for me to call. She was immensely relieved. About an hour later the all-clear was given and we returned to our hotel. We moved our 10 p.m. ops meeting to 11 p.m. and the students were given their credentials and badges and everyone received their assignments.
The president had changed our mission. We were now going to assist in reopening the two major New York City airports. Half of us were to assist in reopening LaGuardia and the other half would go to JFK. We would work two shifts. I was assigned to LaGuardia and would work the afternoon/evening shift from 2 p.m. until 3 a.m. I was the supervisor of LaGuardia’s Main Terminal where most of the airlines came in, including American and United. U.S. Air and Delta had their own terminals. The Main Terminal had four concourses. We started that night.
For the next five weeks we worked the airports until the New York National Guard came in and took over. We literally taught the screeners how to properly screen people and how to properly use the walk-thru magnetometers and X-ray machines. Their level of expertise was deplorable through no fault of their own. They had been given very little training. The people in charge of security for the airlines, which paid for the screening stations, had not changed their “profits at any costs” attitude one bit. All they were interested in was the bottom line and they wanted everything to be “business as usual” and fought us at every point on security measures we wanted to enforce.
We also answered calls from the ticket counters when people with names on the new terrorist watch list approached the counters to buy tickets. We would respond and hold them until the Port Authority Police and the FBI arrived to take them away for questioning. Working the screening stations was very arduous as all of the travelers had to learn and deal with the new, stricter screening procedures. By the time we left, there were dozens of large boxes full of everything from cork screws, knives, fingernail clippers, box cutters, kitchen knives, and every sort of sharp object you can imagine.
During our stay several stark reminders of the tragedy reminded us of the pain and anguish the city had experienced and would experience for decades. Although no other attack occurred, the city remained tense and on high alert the entire time we were there. In those first few days following the attack numerous false alarms arose and checkpoints were established at all of the important roads in and out of the city with all large trucks being inspected. The eeriest thing I experienced were the commercial jets that resumed their flights out of LaGuardia and over the city. Every time I ventured out of the hotel in the morning and heard the jet engines and looked up to see a jet flying past the buildings the image of the second plane curving around the sky to fly into the South Tower came flying into my memory. This vision never went away.
The worst experience I endured while there occurred daily. In fact, I awoke to it every day and it wasn’t my alarm clock. Many of the police officers and firefighters who lost their lives were Catholic and many had their funerals in the Cathedral next to the hotel and across from the fire station. There were one or two funerals every day. Every morning the church bells would ring signaling another hero’s service was beginning. At the end of the service the bells would peel again. Once the fireman’s casket was loaded on top of the engine company’s fire engine and once the fire engine began its slow procession away from the Cathedral, the fire engine’s sirens would wail a long, somber dirge as it slowly pulled away. Everyone stopped and either bowed their head, saluted, put their hand over their heart or just stood there and cried. This was the case every day until the day I left.
One evening after we ended our shift and returned to the city at about 3 a.m., we drove down to “The Pile” instead of returning to the hotel. Everyone got out and looked at the devastation and paid their respects in different ways and many said a prayer. I decided not to get out and look. Three years earlier I had taken my then-girlfriend to the World Trade Center and we went to the observation deck and did other things around the area. I brought her back as my wife the next year. I also had great memories of my three months living in the hotel that I mentioned earlier and the people I had met. I preferred to keep those images rather than the image I surely would see now. We later stopped at a small park a few blocks away that had turned into a combination memorial and missing person’s posting.
There were hundreds of typewriter paper-sized posters with photos and identifying information on missing persons. Many were listed as having jobs in the World Trade Center. Almost all appeared to be in their 20s. Numerous photos were those of people with obvious ethnic backgrounds: Some in traditional Arabic and Islamic clothing. I was struck by this since it had become obvious that the attacks were intended to kill American “infidels.”
Finally, about five weeks after our arrival, we were relieved by the New York National Guard and returned home. We were met by our loved ones and co-workers who had stayed behind. My wife surprised me by driving up from Savannah and if it hadn’t been for the fact that I had to get all of the students rounded up and assigned to dorms for the evening, I would have burst into tears. Things had occurred so fast and moved even faster once it was obvious we had to get ready to go to New York City that I had not mourned at all and I felt the need to. I never really did and I still feel that need today.
David King, Richmond Hill
