The memories came flooding back two nights ago, upon the announcement by our President that Osama bin Laden was finally dead. You know something affects you profoundly when you can remember the minutia of the hours and days even ten years later. That's the way 9/11 affected me. So the words just poured off my fingertips and onto the keyboard without much thought when I wrote the editorial in today's Clarion Ledger.
Some things I remember didn't make it into the piece, but I thought they would be worth jotting down. Like I said in the editorial, my wife and I had an amazing view of downtown Manhattan for the first four months we were in that Brooklyn apartment. People in other parts of the country could simply turn off their televisions to escape the tragedy of that day. But for us, we had to start keeping our blinds down. But even then we couldn't escape it. For months after the tours fell there was a putrid acidic smell of burning metal. Every time we walked outside we smelled it. I still remember standing on my rooftop on the evening of 9/11 and watching the sirens and smoke and lights created by all the emergency vehicles. I remember being comforted by the sound of F-16 fighter jets patrolling the skies. I remember staying awake all night, feeling more alone than I had ever felt with my wife being stranded at her brother's apartment. I remember not wanting to go back to law school when classes resumed because I thought it was meaningless in the face of all that had happened. Those are just a few of the things I remember. I could go on and on.
Several parts of the editorial were cut in order to make it fit within the pages of the newspaper. Being a former newspaper man myself, I am completely unoffended and just pleased the editors at the Clarion Ledger thought enough of my writing to put it to print. However, for my friends out there who like reading my stuff I wanted you to see the entire transcript of the piece. It adds a little more to it, I think.
Here it is. Thanks for reading it:
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was a second-year law student living in downtown Brooklyn, doing my reading for my 10 a.m. Criminal Procedure class from the comfort of my couch. Just a little earlier I had kissed my wife good bye as she departed for the subway which would take her to her job at one of those big New York City law firms in midtown Manhattan. It was her first job, the economy was hopping, and we were freely spending her salary on a 19th floor Brooklyn Heights apartment with a beautiful view of downtown Manhattan. The centerpiece of that view was the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
I took a break from my reading to admire the beautiful New York skyline, and that’s when I noticed a plume of smoke coming from one of the towers. It’s a testament to the size of those buildings that the hole which we later learned was created by a Boeing 757 appeared to me to have been created by a small aircraft. “It must have been an accident,” I thought. I was only slightly alarmed. My wife was gone, so I did what any 23-year-old alone and slightly alarmed would do: I called my Mom. I told her I thought a small plane might have accidentally hit the World Trade Center. She, too, was slightly concerned. As I was describing the scene to her I noticed a United Airliner jet approaching too quickly, too fast, and too low across New York harbor. Within seconds it disappeared into the second tower in a ball of fire. Now both buildings were burning.
“Oh my, God, Mom!” I screamed into my phone. “A second plane just hit the other tower!!!”
My mother back home in Mississippi, the same Mother who tried to send me to New York City with a 9 mm pistol which she proudly gave me for Christmas the week before I moved there (guns are illegal in New York City) told me to go buy bottled water. I didn’t argue.
But first I called my wife’s office. Her subway line passed directly beneath the World Trade Center and I wanted to make sure she was okay. Within a few minutes she called me. She had made it through in time to see the pillars of smoke safely from her stop in Midtown.
By this time I learned the Pentagon had been hit. Planes were missing. News was breaking fast. I’m embarrassed to admit, I didn’t even feel safe in my 34-floor apartment building in Brooklyn. For all I knew planes were just dropping out of the sky. My wife and I agreed she should stay put until we had more information.
My neighbor, Tom, from across the hall came over and we watched the buildings burn together. By that time we knew the Pentagon had been hit and like everyone else we deduced that the carnage we were watching was an act of terrorism. Tom had binoculars. As he looked he said he could see people on the rooftop of the buildings. He told me he saw them jumping. I nearly vomited. He offered the binoculars to me, but I had no desire to use them. As we watched the buildings burn I wondered how long it would be until the fire department put them out? When would the helicopters come and rescue people from the rooftops?
It never occurred to me what would happen next. At 9:59 a.m. the South Tower disappeared into a cloud of dark grey dust and ash. It took me a minute to realize what had happened. The South Tower had fallen. A little later, the North Tower disappeared. It was too awful for words. But I didn’t cry. Not because I’m a tough guy, but because it hardly seemed real. Planes don’t explode in front of people, or strike buildings. Towers don’t fall. People don’t die in plain sight. I just sat there in stunned silence.
A couple hours passed that morning before it was reported on television that another plane had crashed in a field in Philadelphia. On that plane, we know some of America’s heroes, along with Todd Beamer who led with a “Let’s Roll!” took the fight to the terrorists, attacked the cockpit and saved countless American lives - possibly American leaders, but they lost their own lives in the process.
Back in New York, the news stations were broadcasting live from nearby hospitals as Doctors and Nurses braced for an onslaught of injured. Sadly, few injured ever came. Even the newscasters couldn’t hide their sadness at the lack of incoming patients.
America had been attacked. Thousands of people had died. Later that day we learned some guy named Osama bin Laden was taking credit for the attack.
My wife never made it home that night. Public transportation had been pretty much shut down and her brother had an apartment within walking distance of her office. She stayed there. I stayed in my apartment with my eyes half glued to the television and half glued to the giant hole in the sky once filled by the Twin Towers and now filled with billowing smoke. It would smoulder for days and was still smouldering on September 14 when President Bush stood atop a pile of broken concrete, bullhorn in one hand and the other arm wrapped around a smoke-faced fireman. I got goose bumps as he promised us that the people responsible for the attack would be hearing from America soon. I wanted revenge.
Days later we were bombing Afghanistan. Months later we were invading Iraq. We’ve been at war ever since. But Bin Laden was nowhere to be found. He released those scarey tapes, promising more violence and encouraging his followers to plot more attacks. But thanks to billions of dollars and our vigilant armed forces, we have not suffered more attacks at home. After a few years I decided Bin Laden was either dead or hiding in a cave never to be found. My lust for revenge subsided. Frankly, I gave up on ever finding him. I’m glad Bush and President Barack Obama did not.
The announcement by President Obama last night that Bin Laden had been finally killed, was surreal in every since of the word. Almost as surreal as the sight of the plane crash and falling towers. Only on this morning after his dramatic announcement is it really sinking in. The terrorist responsible for the attack on New York City, Washington D.C. and the deaths in that field in Philadelphia is now dead.
I believe it now, but deciding what his death really means will take more time to digest.
Osama bin Laden is dead, but so are nearly 3,000 people who died in the Twin Towers on that violent morning. Osama bin Laden is dead, but so are the 1,453 American soldiers who have died since we invaded Afghanistan looking to bring him to justice back in 2001. Osama bin Laden is dead, but it’s only a matter of time until a radical with a plane or a bomb slips through the cracks. Osama bin Laden is dead, and so is the Jake Adams who lived before September 11, 2001, the one that had never seen a plane crash, or a tower fall, the one who was oblivious to danger from terrorists, the one who thought New York City was a safe place. But Osama bin Laden is dead, and for that I am glad.
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