That Day, as I Saw It
everything changed
I had just come back from a meeting at C5F about something that no longer mattered when a few minutes later I noticed people hanging around the TV that was always on.
It got my attention just a few minutes after the first plane hit. It was a long couple of days that changed everything...and not for the better for anyone.
One thing people forget: around that time you had several incidents of planes crashing into buildings. Iirc, 1 or 2 of students crashing after flying closer than their experience possibly warranted, 1 guy showing off, and one deliberate crash to be part of an "art installation" project. So like the local talk show host, I thought "another idiot". After the 2nd plane was reported, I thought, "Someone sent in the first string".
Somewhat worried the rest of the day we'd get hit with a truly serious attack against the grid or fuel distribution.
I was working for a Defense contractor in Alexandria. Was watching the TV i the lobby when the second plane went in. I remarked to the retired Colonel next to me: "We're at war. I don't know who we are at war with, but we're at war." Later we stood on the roof and watched the Pentagon burn. None, of our staff died, but I knew staff in OA22 who did.
Raise a glass to Rick Rescorla today:
"At 8:46 A.M. on the morning of September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC 1). Rescorla heard the explosion and saw the tower burning from his office window in the 44th floor of the South Tower (WTC 2). When a Port Authority announcement came over the P.A. system urging people to stay at their desks, and before United Airlines Flight 175 would strike the South Tower at 9:03 A.M., Rescorla ignored the announcement, grabbed his bullhorn, walkie-talkie and cell phone, and began systematically to order the roughly 2,700 Morgan Stanley employees in the South Tower to evacuate, in addition to the employees in WTC 5, numbering around 1,000.
Rescorla had boosted morale among his men in Vietnam by singing Cornish songs from his youth, and now he did the same in the stairwell, singing songs such as one based on the Welsh song "Men of Harlech"
After successfully evacuating almost all of Morgan Stanley's 2,700 employees, he went back into the building. When one of his colleagues told him he too had to evacuate the World Trade Center, Rescorla replied, "As soon as I make sure everyone else is out." He was last seen on the 10th floor of the South Tower, heading upward, shortly before its collapse at 9:59 A.M., 56 minutes after being struck by United Airlines Flight 175. A total of 13 Morgan Stanley employees died in the September 11 attacks, including Rescorla, his deputies Wesley Mercer and Jorge Valezquez, and security guard Godwin Forde, who had collectively stayed behind to help others"
Real Men