Vivid Memories of 9/11

Here it is, six years after that horrible day in 2001 and the images in my memory are as fresh today as they were on that horrific morning. It was one of those events in history like the Kennedy Assassination, the attack on Pearl Harbor or the Challenger Shuttle explosion where you can remember exactly where you were when it happened.

It sounds so cliché but it really was just another day like all the rest before it. On September 11, 2001 I was working as the morning announcer on the local radio station in my hometown. The morning had been going smoothly with the usual jokes, interviews, trivia contests and birthday announcements. I had just finished a break at 8:49 a.m. when Todd Smith, one of our news reporters, opened the studio door and told me to come to the newsroom and that the World Trade Center in New York had been hit.

I looked out the studio window and I clearly remember thinking, "it's a beautiful clear day how could you not miss the World Trade Center, it can't be an accident." I walked across the hall to the newsroom and joined the rest of the staff watching the TV as we speculated the size of the plane. CNN was reporting a small private plane had hit it but we looked at the hole in the building and knew that couldn't be the case. A small plane would have bounced off the side of the tower.

It was now 9:00 a.m. and with the news on I had five free minutes to go back to the newsroom to continue watching the events as they unfolded. Standing there I said, "they had to have hit it on purpose." No sooner did I get the words out of my mouth and the second plane came into view. "There's another one" I shouted just before it slammed into the second tower and erupted into a gigantic fireball over the city. The words that followed by most of us watching included "Holy Shit" and "Oh my God" as we stared in disbelief at what we were witnessing. I think Todd and I both said "It's an attack" at the same time as we rushed to get back to the studios to get the latest out to our listeners.

Realizing the magnitude of what was happening, I knew we had to change our programming immediately from music to information. Nobody was going to care that they weren't hearing the Eagles, all they wanted was the latest information. For the next 45 minutes and with the help of our news staff, I did my best to provide the latest details, facts and thoughts on what was transpiring.

At 9:40 a.m. the Pentagon was hit by yet another plane and this went from being more than a story we could handle with our limited resources. I managed to find ABC Radio's coverage on a satellite feed and switched over to live coverage from them for the remainder of the day. We stopped only for local news at noon and then returned to the ABC feed for the afternoon.

After watching for hours on TV at work and having seen the towers collapse, I finished off my duties for the day and went home to continue viewing from my couch. It was one of those things where you're watching all of these events unfold in front of you, yet you really can't believe what you're seeing. It was an overload of emotions as I watched in disbelief.

I can't remember what I did on the air the next morning as it was just a blur. I certainly wasn't in the mood to be funny, tell jokes or play games and I don't think my audience was in much of a mood for it either. I think all I did was take calls and talk about what had happened. There was much speculation of course on who was to blame but at the time all I could think about were the number of lives lost, how few survivours were pulled from "Ground Zero" and just the size of the disaster.

The number of victims was close to the total lost at Pearl Harbor but this was so different because other than the Pentagon this wasn't a military target and these weren't soldiers and sailors being targeted. These were civilians of all nationalities; average everyday hard-working people like you or me who never hurt anyone and probably didn't know much about the terrorists, their agenda or their homeland. All they did was get up in the morning and go to work or get on a plane and it cost them their lives. For the heroes wearing police and firefighters uniforms; they died doing what they were trained to do and I'm sure their families are proud of them and their sacrifice.

As I sit here six years later, a lot of things have changed in my life but I still remain angry at some things. I'm angry at those who perpetrated those acts and I'm angry that the cowards behind it have not been brought to justice. I always hear how this is a small world but for some reason we can't find Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice.

I don't want to make this a political statement but I'm not a fan of George W. Bush. Having said that, I would like him a lot more had he been able to capture and kill Bin Laden as he promised in the hours and days following the attacks. I am in favour of the death penalty and I don't think anyone has deserved it more in recent years than him. I'll smile ear to ear if he is ever found alive and soon after killed.