Remembering the horror and ensuing unity of the 9/11 attacks
I’ll never forget that day. I was in the bathroom shaving and preparing for work on September 11, 2001, when the phone rang.
It was my brother James, calling at an unusual time, I thought, just before 7 a.m. mountain time.
“Turn on the TV,” he said. “An airplane has hit the World Trade Center.
James clearly knew something terrible had happened, or he wouldn’t have called -- something even worse than a plane “accidentally” striking the North Tower of the Trade Center, though when I tuned in to the breaking news telecasts the initial speculation was an accidental strike.
No one even knew the size of the airplane at first. Some newscasters thought it was a small, private plane. After all, why would a big airliner be flying that low?
And then the second plane struck the South Tower, and I was filled with astonishment and horror. We were under attack.
One thing I thought to do at the time was pop a tape into my old VCR and start recording. I knew intuitively that this was a huge moment in American history.
About a half hour later, a third plane struck the Pentagon, then a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania when passengers fought back. That plane was bound for either the White House or the U.S. Capitol building.
And then each of the Twin Towers collapsed, killing thousands trapped inside.
It was a Tuesday – a busy day in the cycle of a weekly newspaper, so I eventually had to head down to the office where, fortunately, we had a television. I watched off and on all day, seeing history unfold.
It was one of those moments in history when you remember exactly where you were at the time. For our very oldest friends and family members, that day to remember was Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. For others, it was the day President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 or the day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969.
I remember where I was when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded after liftoff in 1986, claiming the lives of teacher Christa McAuliffe and six other crew members. I was visiting with Rocky Roche in the back of Rocky’s Too, where he had a black-and-white TV.
Most recently, the attacks on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, by insurrectionists is forever burned into my memory.
I remember being furious after the 9/11 attacks and wrote an editorial calling the attacks an act of war.
“Events like these test a nation’s mettle, gauge her courage and fortitude,” I wrote, adding “Terrorism is designed to wage psychological war, as well as cause physical damage. The aftermath of this attack will be an important time in our nation’s history. … How we respond as a nation will shape our future.”
Indeed, in the days and weeks that followed, our nation united like no other time in my memory. It must have been how our people felt after Pearl Harbor.
Dread, horror and rage turned into national pride as our country banded together in a spirit of patriotic solidarity. I would get emotional hearing certain songs or watching our first responders at work, and although mistakes were surely made in the months and years that followed, I’m not sure I had ever been as proud of my country, nor have I been since then.
Contrast that to today, a time when our nation is sickeningly divided by political distrust and hatred of “the other side” – our own citizens. My, how things have changed.
Recalling history is not simply remembering the past, it is learning for the future, and I just hope and pray that we will one day return to being a people indivisible. But I must say: that hope seems far, far off.
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