Community recalls day of terror

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Daily Pilot asked readers for their memories of Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked New York and Washington. The following are two of the first responses.

I was on the 61st floor of tower No. 2 on Sept. 11, 2001. This was the second building hit and the first to fall. I was in the stairwell when the plane hit the building and was out of the building approximately three minutes before it fell. One of many reasons that the “war on terror” has not resonated politically with the average American was underscored by the comments in your Sunday paper from a teacher to her class of young students (“Learning in shades of 9/11”). Although simplified for the age group of the students, it is not far from the message delivered from the documentaries, news stories and now Hollywood movies. Let me paraphrase: 9/11 was a really bad day where some buildings were attacked and a lot of firefighters and police officers died.

Of the 2,700 Americans slaughtered that day in New York, nearly 2,400 of them were not firefighters or police; they were ordinary Americans going to work, dropping children off at day care, getting a cup of coffee, sitting at their desks, surfing the net, in meetings, in an elevator, etc. They were busboys, executives, receptionists, salespeople, baristas, janitors, and lower- , middle- and upper class. They were you and me.

Please note that nobody who reads this has a greater appreciation for the firefighters, police and other rescue workers (heroes) of that day than I do. I would not be here if not for their courage and commitment to selflessly help others at risk of their own demise. While I was fighting to get out of the building to save myself, they were rushing to get in to save others.

If you saw the destruction of nearly 3,000 fellow Americans’ lives as up-close and personal as I did, you would not only politically allow wiretapping and some of the other controversial methods of surveillance, you would hold our leaders in dereliction of duty if they did not use these tools to prevent this from happening again.

This was not something that happened far away to other people. This happened right here to you and me.

JOHN R. CRITTENDEN, Newport Beach

My husband and I went to Washington, D.C., with our son, Allen, his wife and their two children. Because we could not get tickets to visit the White House beforehand, our son got up at 5 a.m. to stand in line so that we all could take the tour. He was first in line.

When we arrived at 8:30 a.m. he left us in line to go to a hotel nearby to use the restroom, and while he was there the TV was on in the lobby and people were watching the clips of the first tower that had been hit. He came back to us and said, “You can’t believe what I just saw.” We were stunned. Right after that, black station wagons arrived at the White House gate and then someone came running out and shouted, “Evacuate!” There were several hundred people in line by that point, and there was smoke in the air which we later learned was from the plane crashing in to the Pentagon.

It was quite an experience.

MARCIA CASHION, Corona del Mar