Thank you. I wish we could show this to everyone, especially those who HAVE forgotten. How quickly history has been blotted from the minds of so many Americans.
I stayed at the Millenium Hilton at the WTC in March of 2001 & took the train out of the WTC many times. The image of all of the people I saw there is seared into my memory. I have a crystal clear memory of walking up to one of the towers early one morning, surrounded by employees holding their coffee and newspapers - just another day on the job for them. Just like September 11th.
On the morning of 9/11, a coworker told me that he'd just heard on the radio that a plane had hit the WTC. I called my buddy (who worked in Soho) and asked him if this was true. His voice was shaky as he told me that his co-worker had been outside, saw the actual crash, and said the plane looked like a 747. I had an overwhelming feeling that it was no accident. I closed my office door, got on my knees, and prayed.
When I called him back later, he was a different person - he and his co-workers saw the second plane hit the towers and watched people jump from the buildings. He was unable to sleep for months afterward, wracked with terrible nightmares.
A friend of mine from college worked for Marsh & McLennan on the 96th floor. I was relieved to find out that he had, miraculously, called in sick that day. He lost nearly all of his co-workers. He still suffers from depression and feelings of guilt for having survived.
Until last April, we lived 30 miles west of midtown in Somerset County NJ. My husband (lightingguy), until changing jobs six months before 9/11, took the Path train into the WTC every single morning. My dad worked for the USDA and had business meetings in the WTC, and my grandfather worked in the Pentagon for over a decade. That morning all I could think about was how it might have been for our family had the timing been a little different. It took my husband over 4 hours to get home from work that day (he was coming from Bergen County NJ just west of the GWB) and the next day we could smell the wreckage in our neighborhood.
We knew one person who worked in Tower 2 and survived. His story is remarkable since he worked above where the second plane hit. He and his wife both worked in Manhattan and took the train together every day, separating in the WTC lobby - she headed a few blocks uptown to her office and he headed upstairs. That morning after the first plane hit, he was among the many who were told to stay put and not panic. He and others ignored the advice and started down. He was several floors (I forget how many) below the second plane's impact when it happened. Moving as fast as they could, they got out of the building and barely away before the tower collapsed - remember, the second tower hit was the first to go. His wife was sure he was dead, and they didn't find each other til mid afternoon. Brings tears just thinking about it.
It all seems like yesterday to me too. Not to at all diminish the loss of life, but I miss the towers. My first time up at the top was when I was 13, on a youth group trip from PA. They were my favorite place to go in the city and we took everyone there when they'd visit (we lived in the city for a while before we had kids). I loved being up there and looking out over the city, and spotting the towers on our way back into town, and from the Circle Line they looked amazing. Even from NJ, we could see them - straight down rt 22, above everything else, no other part of the skyline was even remotely visible. For the next 3 years until we moved to OH, the skyline never stopped looking strange to me.