I remember where I was when I first saw planes flying into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. I had Good Morning America on in the bedroom of my apartment in San Diego. I was due to go into work and couldn’t move away from the screen. My roommate didn’t know yet when I told her to come and look.
We went to work at the cafeteria at UCSD where we were ending the summer conference season and preparing for the new year. I was also working part-time at KSWB 5/69, a local news station, but wasn’t scheduled to work the assignment desk that day.
By lunch we were sent home. No one could work. We were near a military base too and were told to just go home and take care of ourselves. No one knew what was going to happen next. In California, when there is an earthquake, you are always more scared of the aftershocks. You didn’t know the initial quake was coming so you rode it out, but you brace for the aftershocks, and that uncertainty sticks with you. Even removed from the actual events, an entire 3,000 miles away, it was the question of what came next that gripped me.
What was going to happen now? Why would someone do this? Will anyone survive? Was anyone I know there? Did I know anyone flying today? Why? Why? Why? Over and over and over this rattled around. It was truly a helpless feeling.
I loved New York City. It was one of my favorite places in the world. Broadway. David Letterman. The Daily Show. Regis and Kathie Lee. Good Morning America. Peter Jennings. I had never been, but NYC was so much a part of my life. And someone did this there.
I got called in to work at KSWB and got to the station as quickly as possible. It was all hands on deck. I was usually on the assignment desk where I was watching for stories, writing some of them and then would run the teleprompter during the show or floor direct. It was exciting to me. I loved the news. When I was a kid, I would get up early to watch the world news and I would watch Peter Jennings every night. I watched votes on C-SPAN and their coverage. My role was small but I was proud to be there after completing my internship. One of my best friends at the time trained me on the desk and took me under his wing.
For 12 hours, maybe more, I was mostly at the desk, glued to the screens and news feeds, making sense of what in a way still defies my understanding of humanity. I ended up writing full blocks of news and did my best to support colleagues who had to anchor and report on things they couldn't believe they were seeing either.
We came from completely different backgrounds and lived experiences. We had different politics and different worldviews. None of that mattered that day. We were just in shock, scared, watching America change in real time while NYC fought back for all of us.
There are so many things that I remember from that day and those that followed. We saw people jumping from buildings and people covered with ash and blood. We saw people crying because they found their loved ones alive and people crying because they found their loved ones dead. We saw a mayor pull people together. We saw late night talk show hosts take a beat and then dare to make us laugh again.
Since then, we have seen firefighters and other workers suffer from cancer, respiratory issues and more because of the conditions they worked in following the attacks. We have seen children grow up without parents and people without their spouses, children and friends holding vigils. We have seen late night talk show hosts testifying before Congress to get aid to real heroes. We saw a war that never seemed like it would end. We took off our shoes at airports and filled 3-ounce bottles with shampoo. We saw Islamophobia that has never stopped. And, we saw New York come back, literally rising from the ashes.
Back to 9/11/2001, in the newsroom. We all left around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and were exhausted. We had been watching and writing and talking non-stop and then we were outside in the cool, damp, clear air in a Kearny Mesa parking lot and we all finally breathed again. Those breaths turned into tears. I don’t know what everyone else felt and can’t even reliably say what I felt then but I know that 25 years on, I still struggle to understand how humans who are capable of so much beauty and good can also be capable of such evil.
I also still don’t know what strength it must have taken for people to keep moving forward after so much loss or injury or witnessing it first hand or from a mile away or at the other end of a frantic phone call or…however any of us witnessed it. But, they did.
In the memory of those who died on 9/11 in NYC, Arlington, Somerset County, and those who have continued to be impacted directly, we should remember. And we should make those memories as true as we can.
In hearing Donald Trump lie about his experience after 9/11, and in hearing him use 9/11 to justify the loss of lives now with the war in Iran (when they call it that), I had to write my true story. But also, I have to say, this is not about me. It never was.
Though I’ll never forget that day because of my own experience, more importantly, I’ll never forget because of how it changed so many lives forever.