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On Sept. 11, 2011, the nation will remember once again the horror of Sept. 11, 2001. In observance of the 10th anniversary of the events that took place that day, The HVN welcomes readers to share their experiences surrounding 9/11, including personal stories and photos.
We are publishing a series of readership reflections this month in honor of the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives 10 years ago as a result of the terrorists attacks by Al-Qaeda.
Send your memories, reflections and photographs to [email protected].
HERE are a few of those memories:
— “I heard on WWFM that an airline had slammed into Two World Trade Center. I immediately turned on the TV, saw the videos, and watched transfixed as the second plane hit the twin tower. I was trembling, the horror of my Pearl Harbor experiences on Dec. 7, 1941 welling up from my core. I was 10 years old then, on Maui, where we were also shelled from a submarine that night. On Sept. 13, 2001, my daughter Marie, while horseback-riding in the Smokies with her husband, got her orders from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Marie, Class of 1975, Hopewell Valley Central High School, a veterinarian, FEMA volunteer trained in disaster response, left her husband and 2-month old son, drove to New York City and immediately began her first of ten nights at Ground Zero. She was veterinarian in charge of the Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams (VMAT) of the American Veterinary Medical Association, servicing the search and rescue dogs and cadaver dogs. I phoned her each morning when her 12-hour shift ended. What did they need? Not dog booties that arrived from all over the nation. The dogs needed bare claws for traction. They needed leashes. I asked at the Hopewell Veterinary Group, which donated a casefull, which the Hopewell Emergency Medical Unit delivered on their next turn of service at Ground Zero — Hannah Suthers, Hopewell Township.
— “I buried the events of 9/11 deep in my mind, but what I do recall of that day was sheer panic and adrenaline. I remember the blue of the sky, and the smell of the fall air. It was when I went to get my coffee that things went awry… I worked on the trading floor of an investment bank on 23rd Street. When I walked in I noticed everyone gathered around the flatscreen. I approached to see that the first tower was on fire. At the time, no one thought much of it, and anticipated the fire department would be there to take care of it, just as any other high-rise fire in the city. I left to get my coffee. When I returned, I went straight back to the TV. As I watched the TV, I saw live the second plane flying into the second tower. Immediate panic. All I remember is the sound of all of the phones on the trading desk ringing nonstop. I immediately tried calling my boyfriend (now husband), who also worked in the city. He was the one who mentioned terrorists, and we decided to immediately get out of New York. As I descended into the lobby of my building, I was told that all tunnels and bridges were closed. My heart stopped, my stomach sank. Think. Think. Boat!
I jumped in a taxi, was able to get my boyfriend on the cell phone, and told him to meet me at the ferry. It was that moment that I will never erase from my mind. It was a moment shared between just me and the taxi driver, who barely spoke English. We were en route to the ferry, and the radio was on. The newscaster was narrating from a helicopter above the World Trade Center. He said: “I’m watching both towers on fire, and …” (period of silence) “ohhhhhhhh myyyyyyy Goddddddd. The tower is falling to the ground.” It was at the moment my mind was frozen in time. I remember looking out the window of the taxi, and seeing people running everywhere on the sidewalks, people in hysteria, people on cell phones, people in sheer terror and panic. Fortunately, I arrived at the ferry, found my boyfriend, and made my way back to Hoboken, where we watched the towers smolder . . . for hours, days and weeks. The panic continued for the days following 9/11, as everyday commutes included continuous paranoia on trains, and subways, wondering what was going to happen next — Jennifer Branagh, Hopewell Township.
— “I had set aside Sept. 11, 2001 as a day to get some errands run, then repaint my porch. As usual I turned on my radio in the morning and, not getting my station, spun the dial until I found out about planes crashing in New York, and Pennsylvania? What were they trying to hit in Pennsylvania? I watched what I could on TV, then decided to continue with my plans for the day. First stop was new tires on my car. An Army Reservist was in the waiting room with me at the tire center; he wanted to get as much done as he could before he was called up. Our conversation was about trying to make sense out of what we were hearing. We couldn’t. I wished him well and thanked him for his service to the country. From there I bought the paint I needed and had a similar conversation with the clerk at the paint store of trying to make sense of the reports.
Route 1 was eerily empty. The sky above our house, which never had more than three seconds lull between various flights overhead, was likewise eerily quiet. It truly felt like the end of the world.
From the paint store I went to Michael’s Diner on Route 1 and sat at the counter. If I want to get a feel for life I sit at the counter of a diner. You never know whom you’ll talk with, but I find I always go away with a better idea of where I want to go and what I want to do with my life from conversations with diner patrons.
That day I sat next to a homeless transgendered Kenyan trained as a practical nurse (I can’t make that up, my imagination isn’t that good!), living at the time in a welfare motel, but he had plans to get his own place soon. He said he’d been tossed out of his family, still back in Kenya, when they learned of his “unnatural tendencies” and he came to America because it’s the greatest place on earth. We talked about trying to grasp the enormity of the day and trying to understand just what this all meant, about his love for this country and all things American. This was the one time I didn’t come away from a diner with answers, but I did come away with a great feeling for the future of our country, a place for the “retched refuse yearning to be free” as inscribed on the Statue of Liberty and embodied by my counter-mate.
An odd fall-out from that day was my elbow injury. While prepping to paint the porch I listened to the radio and obsessively scraped, scraped, scraped until the wall was clear of old paint and I developed tendonitis. It almost sounds like a joke; such suffering all around and I get tennis elbow. It took years to recover — a physical reminder of the pain individual families and our country incurred on that awful day.
It was only the next day that I discovered I knew a passenger on Flight 93. Colleen needed a cane to get around and at her memorial service someone suggested that she probably used that cane to trip one of the hijackers. I hope she did. She was feisty. When we started telling jokes again (have you heard about the one about the Al-Queda member getting to heaven to discover he wasn’t going to face 75 Virgins, but 75 Virginians led by Patrick Henry and George Washington?) — I knew we were on the path to recovery. It’s a long path with a lot of false turns, the so-called “Patriot Act” among them, but I have high hopes for us. Americans are resilient — Valerie Nelson, Titusville.