United States history is replete with rallying points, acts of war that have, in the words of Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, "Awakened a Sleeping Giant and strengthened his resolve." Some of those cries include... Remember Bunker Hill. Remember the Alamo. Remember Fort Sumpter. Remember Pearl Harbor. ... Today we have another tragedy to remember, and we WILL be moved to action by it.

REMEMBER THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

Some time early on the morning of September 11, 2001, four commercial jet airliners were hijacked in an apparently well-coordinated terrorist plot against the United States on our home soil. Two American Airlines jets, and two United Airlines jets. All were bound for California -- three to LA-X in Los Angeles, one to San Francisco -- originating from east coast cities, Boston, Washington, and Newark in New Jersey. Each plane carried between 40 and 100 people, including passengers and crew. The weapons used to pull off the hijackings were apparently nothing more than knives or knife-like implements, wielded by well-trained terrorists, which may help explain the catastrophic failures of security that allowed this to happen.

At approximately 8:45 AM Eastern Time, one of the jets from Boston arrived in New York and crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, near the top of the structure. At first, news media were reporting this incident with the accompanying speculation that a horrific accident had occurred. Less than twenty minutes later, the second Boston jet arrived and was filmed crashing into the south tower after having circled around to get a clear angle of attack, clipping the side of the building at a lower level, approximately at the 70th floor. (Each tower was 110 stories tall). At this time, it became clear that these were deliberate acts, suicide terrorist attacks of the most cold-blooded nature. The skyline above Manhatten choked with monumentally large plumes of thick black smoke. A number of people fell or jumped from open windows or the top of the building, hundreds of feet to the street. There was speculation among witnesses that these were jumping to escape smoke and flames, but information since learned has led me to conclude that many of them were sucked out by the vacuum force created when the windows blew out, and fell quite unintentionally to their deaths. Rescue personnel soon arrived on the scene, as a ten-alarm response was initiated and all of New York City spurred into motion. Hundreds of survivors inside the buildings struggled without elevator service to descend the stairwells and escape the dying buildings, but had to make their way through smoke, through water from the sprinkler systems, through a slice right out of Hell. How many of them realized the extent of their danger is unknown. One witness described handicapped workers, unable to descend the stairs on their own, waiting for someone to come for them, helpless to save themselves.

At approximately 9:50AM, a third plane, originating from Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia, just outside the capitol beltway in the DC area, and bound for Los Angeles, was crashed into the Pentagon Building in Washington, DC.

I happened to be sleeping through these events. At 9:55 AM, a best friend I grew up with in the Washington DC area telephoned me at my home in the mountains of western Pennsylvania, from a highway in Dallas, Texas. He woke me to tell me the news. His mother is a high end government employee in Washington, and he was concerned because he had been unable to reach her by phone. I listened in complete disbelief as my friend told me that planes had been crashed into the trade center. AS HE WAS TELLING ME THIS, his car radio was blaring news in the background, and the announcement was made that one of the trade center towers was in the process of a total collapse.

At 9:58AM, the south tower of the trade center collapsed. How many people remained in the building at that time, or were caught too close to it, is unknown. Many of those trapped and presumably killed in this event were rescue workers who had come to help save other lives. New York City Mayor Guiliani had been at the scene to inspect the rescue effort, and in interviews later in the day, he would describe rather poignantly some of the friends and officials in his fire and police departments, whom he had spoken to during his brief initial appearance on the scene, who perished just minutes later when this first tower collapsed.

What caused the skyscraper to collapse? There was speculation that there may have been a "secondary device" -- another bomb, detonated inside the building, leading to its collapse. My belief is that this was not necessary and did not happen. A jet full of fuel burning inside the building seems to me to be the likely cause. If the fires burned hotly enough to melt the steel supports, or even just enough of them to start the cascade, the sheer weight of the top floors collapsing may have crushed each successive floor below in a gigantic chain reaction that downed the entire structure. Uncounted tons of steel, concrete, glass, plastic, fiber, and electrical circuits, with human beings still trapped inside. The spectacle of it is... staggering. (Later in the day, in reports and analysis from the building architect and other experts, they confirmed my thoughts that it would only have taken the complete collapse of the top floors, due to fire weakening the structural supports, to initiate the implosions).

I'm on the phone, listening to this, listening to the shock of my friend, and everything is fuzzy. I'm hearing this, but it's not quite sinking in yet. I felt detached, like I was watching a bad dream. I mean I was STUNNED. I could not absorb the information. At least three more minutes passed, with his radio chattering live reports in the background, before I was awake enough and heard enough details to realize that these tragic events were all too real. My friend and I talked about the attack for ten or fifteen minutes, until he arrived at work in Dallas. He had to go. I told him to stay safe. At that time, neither of us realized that there was another attack in the process of failing, taking place almost right on top of my house, out in the airspace over rural southwestern Pennsylvania!

Shortly after 10AM, the fourth plane, originating from Newark and bound for San Francisco, was flying almost directly over my house, unbeknownst to me while I talked on the phone. A passenger on that plane managed to get into the bathroom and telephone 911, reaching emergency services in Westmoreland County, west of Somerset County, where I live. My mother lives about two miles away from me. Her husband, my stepfather, was outside unloading some things from his pickup. He was an eyewitness to the fourth plane, which flew at low altitude directly over their house. Having heard of the terrorist attacks on the news, he became concerned and telephoned the Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Somerset, PA, to inform them of what he saw. Many other members of my local community were also witnesses to this plane's final minutes. He later to described to me in some detail how much of the plane he had been able to make out -- windows, cargo doors, etc -- because of how low to the ground it was flying. A retired police officer and his friends were playing golf at the Oakbrook golf course, less than a mile from my house. He described noting how low the plane was flying, and that its wings were dipping first one way, then another, and he knew the plane was in serious trouble. It flew in an eastward direction -- back toward Washington? Or perhaps toward Philadelphia or Camp David in Maryland? We don't know. Other witnesses who saw the plane crash described how it rolled onto its side and nose-dived into an empty field near two coal strip-mining sites, about ten miles east of my home, here in Somerset County. No one on the ground here in Pennsylvania was injured or killed. The impact left a crater about twenty feet deep, the debris and remains of the people on board disintegrated. The largest pieces were only a few feet long, according to eyewitnesses who were working those coal mines and rushed to try to find survivors. Most of the debris was much smaller than that, and very widely scattered.

I threw on some clothes and went downstairs to tune in to the television. Of course, every channel was carrying live news coverage. I stared at the live pictures of smoke and clouds of dust blanketing an incredibly large area of Manhatten, the downtown heart of New York. These terrorist bastards had managed to bring down one of the towers. That was... unbelievable. Not more than four or five minutes passed, now shortly before 10:30AM, when the second tower in New York collapsed, live, right there on my screen. In the moment when I realized that it was going down, I could not help but wonder how many people had had time to get out of there, and to pray for mercy for those who had not, that they should die quickly, and not suffer. The scope of this event was incredible. I felt a great outrage, a calm sort of determination, and at once both awe at the results of this terrorist action -- clearly the worst ever in world history, to date -- and indescribable SCORN for the pathetic nature of this on a military scale. The perpetrators of this crime are expressing their weakness, that THIS is the best punch they have to throw at the United States? This is how they wage war? By capitalizing on the freedoms and openness of our society, with a sneak attack? It was both innovative and horrifying, both stunning and pathetic. I had not yet heard anybody on the news mention Pearl Harbor, but I thought of it myself at this point. Certainly nothing of this magnitude had happened to the United States, not only in my lifetime, but in that of my mother, either. My father was just an infant when the Japanese attacked Hawaii. That was a historic event from two generations ago... and now something of that scope, A COWARDLY SURPRISE ATTACK ON THE UNITED STATES RESULTING IN THE LOSS OF THOUSANDS OF HUMAN LIVES, was taking place. This wasn't a dream, wasn't a nightmare. This was happening.

A few minutes later, I heard unconfirmed reports on the NBC network of a plane crash "southeast of Pittsburgh." Um... my county is two counties away from Pittsburgh, and on the other side of a mountain ridge. Thus, we don't get Pittsburgh television reception over the air -- not at all with rabbit ears, and even a rooftop antenna only brings in a fuzzy signal. It's hard to consider yourself part of a city's metropolitan area when you don't tune in to their media for news and such. I suppose in some ways of viewing it, this area is "near" Pittsburgh, at least in the sense that Pittsburgh is the closest major metropolitan area. I can get to Pittsburgh in two hours. However, we have a smaller city that is much closer, and that's Johnstown, PA -- city of the worst flood disaster in US history -- less than half an hour to the north. Johnstown has its own stations, two of them, and Altoona, another nearby midsize city, has two more stations. So we have all four major US broadcast networks covered, without any need for Pittsburgh media.

It was at this point that I switched from satellite coverage to my local NBC station out of Johnstown, and watched the initial reports coming in first by cellular phone, then eventually video and direct sound, with reporters fairly close to the scene in Shanksville, where the final plane went down. The reporters were soon shooed away by the FBI, but not before they captured footage and had time to make several reports. It was immediately clear that there would be no survivors from that wreck. The destruction of the aircraft was total.

I followed the coverage throughout the day. I spoke with my mother, found out my stepfather had witnessed the plane. I talked with him for several minutes, to find out what he had seen. I also spoke with my father over long distance telephone, to learn that he was safe down in the Maryland suburbs of DC. As the minutes and hours passed, more and more was learned, and fears of additional attacks were calmed, as eventually it was confirmed that only four planes had been hijacked.

One more major event took place on this first day. Somewhere around 5PM Eastern time, another building in the trade center complex (building #7) collapsed. It had been 47 stories tall. Apparently, collateral damage from the towers collapsing and/or fires started by that collapse, weakened this building past its tolerance and down it went, about eight hours after the initial attack. How many more buildings in that immediate vicinity may be unsafe now, and may collapse or have to be destroyed, remains unclear. The south side of Manhatten is being described as a "war zone".

These are the events of the day, as I experienced them. Tomorrow I will write more, and get into some analysis and commentary, relate additional connections I feel to the events of the day. I write these articles not only as an expression of my experience, but to offer some news and perspective -- particularly to fans of my site from outside the United States (I've received bits of mail from all corners of the globe) -- which you may not be able to get through the mainstream media. More to come.

- Sirian

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