Please feel free to share your stories here.
Here’s mine.
On September 11, 2001, I was a contractor working at the U.S. Department of State as a firewall administrator. It was a Tuesday. Trust me. I know it was a Tuesday. My shift was Tuesday through Saturday, and I remember, because we had Black Tuesday mix CD’s – the aggressive, heavy metal discs I would listen to simply to get me through the opening day of my work week. After all, the project team had all of Monday to build up their issues with me and my team. I wore all black on Tuesday, because quite frankly, my week sucked, and Tuesdays were the tip of the iceberg.
We (meaning me and my co-worker, Grilla – a former Army M-60 gunner and interrogator with more issues than I can fill in a dozen blogs) went in to work. By the time we checked in, the first plane had struck the World Trade Center (8:46 am). The immediate wave of emotion swept over contractors and government employees alike. We were convinced that we had just witnessed a terrible tragedy.
Curiosity drove everyone to search the Internet, seek answers, get updates. The web was flooded and those who couldn’t wait for the screen to refresh headed to lounges and break rooms. We waited for news on the impossible disaster of a flight gone astray. Instead, we received reports of the unthinkable. No one could have anticipated the images that followed. We gasped, we sobbed, we cursed, we denied as we witnessed, at 9:03 am, the second plane struck the World Trade Center…
and suddenly, we knew…all of us knew this was no accident.
I remember my co-worker, John, asking a few minutes earlier if he could take a break. John was comical, extroverted, and transparent. Any break for John meant a cigarette, and I had absentmindedly granted his request.
I picked up the phone and called my father, who has since retired from the law enforcement community. My parents were vacationing on Cape Cod, and all I could ask was that they turn on the television. I had no explanation. I told them I loved them and I hung up. Chaos had taken its hold on our lives as security professionals sworn to protect the USA, its embassies and the men and women who had volunteered to serve in the various branches of the military. I wanted to freak out. I wanted to leave. I wanted to be home; to hold my bride and to know my family was safe.
Then I looked to my left at the doorway, and I realized it was worse than I could have imagined.
John stood in the doorway to the datacenter. His eyes were glazed over. He was unable to focus on anyone within his immediate vicinity. Despite crossing through the turns-dial, down the hall, down the stairs and through the automatic doors, the cigarette still dangled from his lower lip. He blinked several times and then stared at me. His sentence was simple, yet it cut through us all like a scalpel.
“They blew up the Pentagon.”
Can’t…even…imagine. Right on the front-lines like that amongst chaos and realizing the full impact. Your description is heart-wrenching.
I was a Junior in college in Fredericksburg, VA, so a little further out from the tragedy at the Pentagon. Even there, the emotions ran high; I think that they did for everyone witnessing the event, everyone who was able to piece together that 1 plane hitting, 2 planes hitting, added up to a targeted and malicious act.
Campus was definitely different that day. Some people chose to gather in support groups, some people chose to start fueling the fires of hatred, which was sad and tragic. I chose to: 1) call my father, a Federal Government employee who worked in the thick of things and 2) try my darndest to ensure that bigotry did not get out of control amongst my peers while internally panicking about what this meant for the future of our country. No matter what events have unfolded since, I can say that some things haven’t changed very much.
Thank you for sharing your experience, Nick.
Thanks for sharing your story, as well. September 11th, 2001 was the Kennedy assassination of our generation. I know people who forget where they were during the Challenger accident, but no one who can’t tell me in vivid detail where they were on 9/11.
I too was at State. I was in a meeting and irritated that one my employees wasn’t there as he was key to the meeting. Then we heard the emergency vehicles all over Rosslyn and the DoD building across the street emptied out.
That’s when the cell phones started ringing and we got the word of what was going on in NY and at the Pentagon and of course PA.
We pulled a TV into the Division Chief’s office and watched it all. We all just stood there in disbelief.
Dick Fath (RIP) along with others made the decision to do something that had never been done in the history of the Department of State. We shut down payroll. We were in the middle of running the payroll for the entire department on the mainframes. In 35 years, that process had never been stopped.
Then we went home and the horror of it all hit. We called loved ones, hugged each other and listened to the fighter jets soar overhead. That was an strange sound.
The next day, I did what my president told me to do. I went to work. We started payroll back up and it ran and all 65 thousand DoS employees got paid on time. I don’t remember being anything but numb for days.
America hasn’t been the same since and neither have I.
Thanks for sharing your story, Teresa. I appreciate it, and I can certainly relate.