I'm not a heroic type, but I've pretty much decided if I was on a plane being hijacked I'd rush the bad guys and chew their necks. Days later the candles, flowers and messages spilled out and down the street. At the time we lived in a duplex apartment in Brooklyn Heights where we could see both towers from the bedroom window. Since the event I have become more educated on the motives behind the attack, which I suppose was the primary objective of the terrorists, to highlight their cause to the world in the most spectacular way imaginable. I remember going to my office to see if I could pull up some additional information on the internet about the Pentagon incident. It was a mass exodus from the city. This area of the museum overlooks the Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Unlike me and my wife and another couple who were staying in the apartment, they, sensibly, had not been sampling cocktails in a nearby bar until the early hours. On Sept. 10, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Three of the four plotters who would pilot the hijacked planes on September 11 and one of the key planners, Ramzi Binalshibh, became more radical while living in Hamburg. Those attacks were then followed in quick succession by the USS Cole bombing in 2000, and then Sept. 11. May 2, 2011: Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. Navy Seals. Australian David Officer took this photo from the Empire State Building on September 10, 2001, and was planning to visit the World Trade Centre with his family the next day. US jet fighters sporadically began flying over the streets, adding to the dreamlike atmosphere and giving a feeling we were under siege. Worries about the consequences of a debt-free America evaporated soon thereafter. September 11, 2002: The first Tribute in Light installation appears in lower Manhattan, beaming up light from where the Twin Towers once stood. November 27, 2002: President George W. Bush signs congressional legislation authorizing federal funding for intelligence activities and the creation of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks. For example, on September 19 the CBS Evening News reported that the September 10 AMR put trading exceeded the call trading to such an extent that its sources had "never seen that kind of imbalance before" and the September 6 put and call trading on UAL was "extremely imbalanced." On that Monday things were a bit weird. Others pinned it to read more, As much of the nation was just starting the day on the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists hijacked four East Coast flights, crashing three of the airplanes into targets in New York and Washington, D.C., with the fourth plane slamming into a field in Pennsylvania after read more, The 9/11 Commission Report was published on July 22, 2004, three years after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. At 9:37, an airliner hit the Pentagon. The attacks against New York City and Washington, D.C., caused extensive death and destruction and triggered an enormous U.S. effort to combat terrorism. Following the Soviet Unions demise in 1991, the United States turned its back on Afghanistan for the first time and the Taliban eventually emerged to govern most of the country, allowing al-Qaeda to set up shop there. 8:24 am Hijacker Mohammed Atta makes the first of two accidental transmissions from Flight 11 to ground control (apparently in an attempt to communicate with the planes cabin). We continued to watch events on the TV, anxiously listening to see if we would need to evacuate. So I have to treat every day as if it was my last. Read the news from September 2001 on the New York Post. I thought that if we need to run away from a disaster scene we should at least be wearing shoes, so I suggested that we all get our shoes on. As a matter of fact, I had painted all my walls black and had blocked the views from my window. Still, when viewed alongside the paper declaring that America had been attacked . The September 11 attacks were precipitated in large part because Osama bin Laden, the leader of the militant Islamic organization al-Qaeda, held naive beliefs about the United States in the run-up to the attacks. A friend of mine on the day after, when she learned I was safe, wrote it in the subject line of an email. When people ask where you were on September 11th and I tell them I was there in Manhattan they are intrigued and want to know my story. For some, concern about the nation's debt focused on what might happen in a few years when the debt was completely eliminated and there was no longer a need for US treasuries, a key component in the world's economy. Six minutes later, the first contingent of New York City firefighterstwo ladder and two engine companieshad arrived at the stricken read more, Almost as soon as the World Trade Centers Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001, thousands of firefighters, police officers, construction workers, search-and-rescue dogs and volunteers headed to Ground Zero to look for survivors. Some years before I had made the conscious choice to either experience events fully or to record them via a camera; same with this. It wasn't until we were back from our run (the day was an absolutely perfect fall day and we had driven to an area where they had some beautiful wooded trails) and I had showered that the phone rang, and it was my sister from Canada checking to see if I was okay. Her hotel was close to the World Trade Centre, and she too had been late that morning. Mohammed Atta was selected to head the operation. I did not usually bring it to work. Within three hours on September 11, 2001, New York's tallest buildings had collapsed and the Pentagon was on fire. Then the TV broke in with news that a small plane had apparently hit one of the towers; from then on the story unfolded. All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). It seemed completely unreal to see it again, like it was some special effect out of Hollywood. Obviously not everything done in the days and months after Sept. 11 was prudent, let alone perfect. Watching the towers collapse was horrific as we knew the casualty numbers would be astronomical. I did not want to believe this to be true. 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. [22] The rate of child mortality was 7.58%, a decrease of 0.26% from 2000. Watch popular content from the following creators: Alex Salvi(@alexsalvinews), Vince Palamara(@vincepalamara1), Kevin Molina Viales(@kevmolina), lobster feet(@ceo.of.im.sleep), Kylie(@thegiraffesmiles4me), Matt(@mattymatt80), Billy(@ohnoitsbilly), <3(@alwaysremember9.11), ThatGoatWave(@wavenxtup), Marcus Andersson(@creamyltalian) . September 10 was just an average work day like any other. This is not the only reason I remember the 10th, however. We organised a meeting two days later to deal with practical issues, such as what to do now that we had no studio; some artists had lost a great deal of work and tools, so we needed to create a comfortable zone where we could operate both physically and psychologically. Then theissue, as always, became how to get out, and what to leave behind. Throughout his stay in the United States, Atta kept Binalshibh updated on the plots progress via e-mail. I will always remember sitting at my desk in my office at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, eyes fixed on the television in the credenza sitting on the other side of the room. July 22, 2004: The 9/11 Commission Report is released. In an almost incomprehensible turn of events, the Taliban flag will once again be flying over Kabul, Afghanistan, just in time for the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, the day Taliban guests. Twenty years ago, on September 11, 2001, 19 members of al Qaeda hijacked airplanes in a terrorist attack that took the lives of almost 3,000 people. If the government was going to execute a citizen, it was assumed that followed after a trial and appeals in the courts of our judicial system, not a unilateral decision by a president that is immune from any review. My wife must have dawdled a bit because she saw a plane overhead and thought to herself, "gee, that's very low". What do you recall about that day, and the circumstances in which you took the photo? I guess that decision potentially changed a part of my life. A fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all on board, after passengers and crew attempted to wrest control from the hijackers. I remember witnessing the rest of the day's horrific events unfold live on TV from a conference room at work. READ MORE:9/11 Lost and Found: The Items Left Behind. It had been scheduled to depart at 8:00 am, around the time of the other hijacked flights. The ongoing scenes of carnage and mayhem in Afghanistan, where a full U.S. military withdrawal was immediately followed by a complete Taliban takeover, will likewise be fixed in the worlds memory forever. Q What stands out for you when you think back to what you were doing on September 10, 2001? At that moment I decided not to watch it live. The first two planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, read more, The coordinated terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 unfolded at nightmarish speed. But now that ship has sailed. Long story short, at one point I mentioned that it was way too early to even begin to speculate on President Bush's place in history. United Airlines flight 93 crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers attempted to overpower the hijackers. Once there he sent a messenger to Afghanistan to inform bin Laden about both the day of the attack and its scope. He formerly served as a foreign policy adviser and speechwriter in the United States Senate (1999-2003). Q What stands out for you when you think back to what you were doing on September 10, 2001? The incident claimed the lives of 2,977 people and destroyed the entire World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City including the Twin Towers. In response, hijackers deliberately crash the plane into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, killing all 40 passengers and crew aboard. On September 11, 2001a clear, sunny, late summer dayal Qaeda terrorists aboard three hijacked passenger planes carried out coordinated suicide attacks against the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing everyone on board the planes and nearly 3,000 people on the ground. 9:45 am Amid escalating rumors of other attacks, the White House and U.S. Capitol building are evacuated (along with numerous other high-profile buildings, landmarks and public spaces). On September 10, 2001 this speech was given by the Secretary of Defense informing the American people that the Pentagon lost 2.3 TRILLION dollars. We then went to a nearby pub where we had arranged to meet my sister. I was a bit embarrassed taking another picture of the towers I had seen so many times before, but I remember thinking how you just couldn't help it. I said that this president will not be remembered, for the most part, by what has transpired to date. Indeed, by the time al-Qaeda struck America on Sept. 11, it had already enjoyed a decade-long winning streak, beginning with its defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan the late 1980s a defeat, ironically, enabled by U.S. assistance to Afghan mujahideen fighters allied with Osama bin Ladens core group. The notion that 20 years was long enough in Afghanistan which seems to be the main argument of the Biden administration is no way to direct foreign policy in such a vital region, with so much on the line in terms of both national security and moral values and leadership. Streets, adding to the dreamlike atmosphere and giving a feeling we were under siege changed a part of life! 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