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As I watched the ceremonies marking the anniversary of 9/11, I found it hard to believe that it has been 25 years since our nation was attacked by the forces of radicalized Islam. That Tuesday was a beautiful end of summer day in New York City as it was in Silver Creek with clear blue skies and warm temperatures
I remember that as I prepared for the day my wife informed me that some kind of aircraft had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I reached a television just as another plane swooped in and hit the south tower. It was like something out of a disaster movie. It didn't seem real, but it was.
As we watched the NBC coverage it became more real as thick smoke poured from both towers and angry flames shot through broken windows and twisted walls. We wondered about the people inside the building and hoped that they were streaming down stairwells or riding down the elevators to escape the smoke and flames. Never for a moment did we think the buildings would not survive.
At around 9:40 a.m., we heard reports that the Pentagon had been hit by another plane and a short time later we saw on television pictures of smoke and flames pouring from a section on the western face of that building. After that came the realization that the United States was under attack by someone and that the nation had quickly gone over to a wartime posture.
At around 10 a.m. CNN cameras located uptown from the towers picked up what looked like a large explosion at the towers, which was how the reporter described it. Following that heavy smoke obscured the World Trade Center site and it took a little time, I remember before it was reported that the South Tower had fallen at 9:59 am just 56 minutes after being hit. Then the North Tour collapsed at 10:28 a.m.
This brought to mind that on Saturday July 28, 1945, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 Mitchell bomber. Lost in a heavy fog over Manhattan had crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building. The plane ripped an 18 to 20 foot hole in the side of 79th but the rugged steel frame of the Empire State Building absorbed the 10-ton impact without any compromise to the structure. In fact, the building reopened for business just 48 hours later.
Shortly after this our son Kiley called from Boston where he ran an office center for Regus, a British company. For the previous month or so he had been working at the company's new center on the 93rd floor of the South Tower assisting them with some issues.
While we knew he had finished there the previous week we were happy that he called to assure us that he was safe. He told us sometime later that the staff had been told it was alright, in fact safer, to remain in the Center after the first plane hit. When the second plane struck, any escape was impossible and the entire staff perished with the exception of one staff member who had been late for work.
Somewhat later he received word to close his center and send employees home. He later told us that on his way home the usually busy streets and expressways of Boston were nearly devoid of traffic.
The rest of that day and the coming days were, for want of a better word, surreal. While you tried to act like everything was normal it wasn't. The skies of the U.S. were closed to civil aviation for three days. The devastation in lower Manhattan was shocking and the notice boards that held pictures of missing relatives with requests for information about them were sad.
2,977 Americans died on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, but unfortunately in the last 25 years over 9,400 Americans have died from illnesses caused by exposure to the toxic dust in and around the site. There are also over 57,000 cases of cancer that have been certified as being caused by exposure to that same toxic dust. The tragedy continues.
Another figure that struck me is that there are 100 million Americans who were born after 9/11 and therefore have no personal knowledge of the tragedy. I think that it is more important than ever that the memories of that tragic day be kept alive and marked in the same solemn way as it has been for the last 25 years.
Finally, because I know that schools no longer do a good job of teaching students American History made plain by the fact that so few know even the most basic facts of our history, I believe that the teaching of our history must be improved and include what the impact of tragedies like 9/11 have had on our nation remembering the famous adage that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com