15th year since

I had a newspaper from August 2001 in my pickup, one of the articles was talking about an immenent terrorist attack within the United States very soon. I remember thinking, yeah right, this isn't the Middle East that stuff just doesn't happen here.

 

Waking up to it in the news in a hotel room.
Reno,nv

 

At home.

I was between jobs temporarily, my mother had left for work. I was trolling through the help wanted ads (remember those?) and working the phone trying to line up interviews. The "Today" show was on the TV. I was barely paying attention when the first plane hit. Figured it was pilot error or something. Then plane #2 hit, then there were reports of planes heading to the White House, the Pentagon, and God knows where else. I was completely glued to the television when Tower #2 began to collapse.

I have never before or since felt so completely consumed with rage while being so absolutely helpless to do anything.

 

I was at Reliable Towing in Bedford Hills, NY (a suburb of New York City only about 20 miles North) and had just put my foot in my mouth with the manager. I was hauling salvaged/wrecked vehicles at the time and just finished loading the first of 5 units that morning. I loaded a 1995 Honda Civic, crap brown in color that was only lightly damaged and went back inside to say goodbye and use the bathroom. I was kinda friendly with most of the places I loaded at, went there often enough and made a joke like always about the severity of the damage to the car I loaded (it was minor), said "well I guess they felt that one", not knowing that the car was his sister's and she had died in the crash (didn't look bad at all). I felt awful, went back out to my truck and heard on the New York radio station I was listening too, WYNY Y-107, Jim Kerr morning show, and heard the report of the first plane hitting the tower, I had to call my wife and have her turn on the tv to confirm this. I then headed over to Briarcliff Manor to pickup a donated vehicle at a residence, the lady answered the door in tears. her husband worked in WTC 1 and she could not get ahold of him. I stayed with her for about 45 minutes until some of her family arrived. Headed over to Peekskill next, then finished out my day in Mount Kisco. Tried to hurry back to the yard in Marlboro, NY but traffic was a nightmare with everyone trying to exit the greater NYC area.

One of the things that sticks out most in my mind was our uncaring, witch of a boss, she was giving our drivers in Manhattan a hard time because they couldn't get their cars picked up! She never did understand that the world did not revolve around her. She even threatened to fire one of the drivers, my brother, who told her he was getting out of the city while the bridges were still open. She could have cared less if he or any of the other drivers were stuck in the city overnight. It took a call to the regional vice-president to get him to tell her to bring the drivers home, the cars can wait, storage charges and late fees be ######!

We then spent the next several months retrieving salvaged vehicles from Ground Zero, taking turns so no one driver would be exposed to the carnage and health conditions more than needed. It was an unreal time to be hauling salvage vehicles and driving tow trucks in the greater NYC area. I was fortunate, even though my wife had family that worked in/at the World Trade Center Plaza, none of them were harmed in the attack, but they have been changed for life as a result of it, and so have I.

 

I was home and preparing myself to go out for another week of dedicated stuff, bossman called me and said forget it borders are shutdown mayhem going on.

I have stay home the whole week.

May we never forget.

 

Begining of grade 11 ( and most of grade 10...again), skipping class with a buddy at his place....news was on TV....

Both in total disbelief...

 

MSN chat. LOL. Wow. A blast from the past.

 

At the time the house we had was in the landing flight path of John Wayne Airport in Orange County. I remember how eerily quiet it was that night not hearing any planes overhead. I guess you get used to them after awhile and it's like white noise. Then in the middle of the night what sounded like low flying fighter jets roared over the house. The family was pretty shook up thinking there'd been another attack nearby. They were just patrolling I guess.

 

I had hauled a load of drilling equipment / tools to Owensboro Kentucky, was eating breakfast that morning at the motel when I seen it on the television.

 

I was at my buddy's house getting ready to enjoy a day at the lake the week before starting our sophmore year at college. Didn't think anything of the first plane, but when the 2nd plane hit we just kinda stood there staring at the TV for a while. Without question, we were going to enlist together, but I wanted to join the air force and he wanted to join the army. We were arguing about it when my friend's father walked in.

He's the most amiable man I've ever met, but he walked straight to his son and smacked him on the back of the head. Hard. He'd never done anything remotely like that so we were both shocked into silence as he lectured "the hell we would" (volunteer for service). He'd never talked about it before, but he started explaining that he volunteered right out of high school in the early days of Vietnam, saw and done horrible things he would never forget, and came out feeling duped -- like the politicians had played off his patriotism. He made us promise to at least finish school first and if we still wanted to join in 3 years, go in as officers where maybe we might have a little more influence.

We took his advice and by the time we graduated it was obvious that the US was not focused on destroying Saudi extremists and, while not excusing their barbarism, that those angry Saudis had some legitimate gripes with US foreign policy.

In hindsight, it is interesting how in the early days any question of why 19 men agreed to launch a kamikaze attack against the US was taboo. Still is in lots of places -- as if groups of folks people just up and go crazy all the time. Or "hate freedom".