It's hard to believe that it was seventeen-years ago today that the United States was attacked by terrorists on U.S. soil in a big way.
I was living in Seattle at the time and received a call from my sister at 5:45-ish in the morning—my time. My first reaction was annoyance. She knew better than to call me before 8:00 my time since ‘rise-and-shine’ was never my thing. But when I picked up the phone, there was real terror in her voice, so I sat up in bed worried that something awful had happened.
Anna was/is a flight attendant with American Airlines and until only August of 2001, had been based in Boston. In September, she was transferred from Boston to Dallas/Fort Worth.
Once she knew she had my attention, her first words to me were, “I’m okay. I’m not on that plane.” Then she instructed me to turn on the television. On T.V., the anchors of Good Morning America were talking back and forth in serious tones about a plane that had flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center Building… not sure if it was an accident—or something else. They seemed reticent to use the “T” word at first.
They showed the pictures of the North Tower, with fire coming out of sides of the building between floors 93 and 99. Before I heard them mention the plane, I thought there had been an explosion. Yet once they mentioned the plane, I then hoped against hope that the plane was empty. But I knew better. Then I hoped it was an accident, but I knew better than that as well. I was certain this was a terrorist attack, and that meant that the plane was full of people. And finally, I wondered, “Oh my god, how far-reaching is this?”
We talked about what happened and watched the news together, and then talked about what we were hearing. Neither of us wanted to hang up now. It was too important that we still had each other and hanging up might disconnect us. As to the plane crew, Anna already knew who was on flight 11. Well she didn’t know the complete flight manifest, but she knew one man in particular that was working that flight. Jeff Collman: her best friend. And I mean literally, her best friend. Jeff was the one who helped her understand my bizarre behavior when I finally ‘came out’, left my church, and had completely lost my footing.
She didn’t mention him right away because she didn’t want to entertain, just yet, the worst. As we continued talking, mostly trying to reassure each other, another plane, Flight 175, hit the South Tower, and we both watched it happen live—in real time. There was an audible gasp—I think even a scream—shared by both of us, and I went numb. The blood left my body. We were under attack. Thousands of people had just been sentenced to death.
I think it was around this time when I saw people literally jumping from the building—the floors above the fire—as if defiantly telling these terrorists they didn’t get to control their destiny. Cameras zoomed in, and the sight made me sick. I was so unnerved I almost couldn’t talk. Which worked out well since Anna’s other line went off, and the caller ID showed it was our mom, from her office at the FAA in Seattle. When Anna answered the phone my mom just screamed in both panic and relief. Anna would need to hang up with me and try and talk my mom down.
The rest of the day was surreal, as it was for so many others. I went to the gym, then to work, and spent most of the day online trying to figure out what had just happened.
The United States had literally been attacked, on our own soil, and nobody knew what was happening. Was there another shoe to drop? Well, there was, in Arlington. At 9:30 am, Flight 77 crashed into west side of the Pentagon. Then the towers collapsed, and the passengers overcome the hijackers and flight 93 is crashed into a field in Western Pennsylvania (probably headed for the White House).
The next few weeks were painful. I received daily calls from my sister who was starting to fall apart because of the immensity of the loss to her personally, but also because of the national tragedy. As a flight attendant she was given the option to take time off, which she did, but the flight attendant community is a small community, and there was a lot of back-and-forth, a lot of speculation, and of course, they all knew how the final moments of Flight 11’s crew went down. Especially since the pilot, John Ogonowski, turned on a comm switch with tower so they could hear what happened.
While I was never as close to the Flight 11 crew as my sister, I had met them. They used to fly the Boston to Seattle run often, and I would pick them up at their hotels, take them around the city, sometimes we would go on tours, and when we were done, we’d all go out and eat. Our last outing was only weeks before the event happened. I had no way of knowing that these people would soon disappear forever.
A few weeks later, my sister went back to work, and the first man on her flight was Muslim, dressed in Muslim headdress. It was a profound moment for her. Does she walk off the plane? Was she right to be afraid? She told me afterward that she saw a look of terror in his eyes as well, as if he knew she… and others… were blaming him for what happened. She smiled slightly, and then showed him where his seat was. For her it was a healing moment, but there’s no question we would struggle with how to relate to the people of the same faith that created such a catastrophe.
That was seventeen years ago. Just over one year ago, 10 July, 2017, her husband, the man/marine who buoyed her through the trauma of 9/11, was killed when the KC-130 he was in blew apart in the sky over Greenwood, Mississippi. I wrote about it here in A Marine’s Final Journey.
While I wasn’t in the arena for these events, I was definitely on the front row, and that kind of hatred, animosity, and violence has left an indelible impression in my mind. I live close to the new memorial, so I go as often as I can, and I take visiting friends there too. I remember! For those who died, for those who lost loved ones, and for our children, I remember. I remember so we can find a way to deal with our differences that doesn’t destroy lives.
Every year my sister remembers the people she lost on that flight, and this year I’m remembering them to you.
❤️ Jeff Collman, I miss you so much! I miss laughing for hours, talking about nothing and your crazy antics.
❤️ Karen Martin, I miss your wicked funny sense of humor, your laugh and our walks on all our sunshine layovers.
❤️ John Ogonowski, you were fiercely protective and kind. Even in your last moments, you thought to turn on a switch that communicated with tower. With you, we were always a team. We loved you, even though we knew you were a pilot.
❤️ Tom McGuinness, you had character, wit and you were Christ-like. Best of all, you put up with us crazy people with no judgement, patience and always a smile.
❤️ Amy Sweeney, you are truly a hero! You were calm, and brave. You called and spoke your last breath to tell the nation who the evil was, where they were sitting and what was happening on that airplane.
❤️ Betty Ong, you as well are a hero. Speaking your last breath to give the facts, and telling them what was happening on board.
❤️ Dianne Snyder, you loved your family, your friends, picking apples and especially loved to laugh.
❤️ Jean Roger, you were kind and adventurous
❤️ Kathy Nicosia, you were our kind, nurturing galley queen, who taught me a thing or two.
❤️ Bobbi Arestegui, you were spunky and vivacious
❤️ Sara Low, you were impossible to be in a bad mood around. Your smile covered your whole being and you always put us in a better mental space.