LETTER: Memories of 9/11

It was 5:30 a.m., Sept. 11, 2001.

As usual, the counselor and I walked from the school to the football field and back before school started. Streetlights guided us down to the field and back. As we walked back, a friend stepped out on his porch and hollered, “A plane just hit the Twin Towers!”

It was just after 6:00 a.m. PST.

I thought he was talking about a Cessna. We retraced our steps. School would start in two hours, and we had to prepare for the day.

As I walked into the house, Jonnie filled me in. It was NOT a Cessna. It was a regular passenger plane. I was stunned! I watched the TV news reporting the event and saw the replay of the South Tower being hit by a second plane. I was speechless! And shocked, to say the least. I was glued to the TV until Jonnie told me I had to get ready for school. It was already about 7 a.m.

By the time I crossed the street and entered the high school around 7:30, the building seemed unusually quiet for a Tuesday. Sometimes students were in the gym, but not today, as I recall. If they were in the gym, they were very quiet. There were a few student cars parked on the street. I checked my mailbox in the lounge by the high school office and went upstairs to my classroom. I do not remember anything clearly except having the TV on in the classroom for a few minutes – nothing had changed the fact that two commercial planes had struck the Twin Towers and the upper floors of both towers were in flames and smoke.

I turned off the TV before students entered the room. It was apparent to me that they had also seen the TV footage before they left home. Some were red-eyed from crying, some quieter than normal for teenagers, and some too upset to do anything meaningful.

The remainder of that school day remains a blur.

I do know that the superintendent held a memorial rally outside the main entrance to the high school for all students and employees. I can’t tell you when that was. I do know that the flag was lowered to half-mast. Such a somber gathering, and rightfully so.

The U.S. had been attacked; people had died in the Twin Towers and on those four planes – the two at the Twin Towers, one at the Pentagon. And one that passengers wrested from the terrorists’ control to keep it from possibly crashing into the White House. It went down in a field in Pennsylvania. They had to have known that they would also die, but I am sure they also understood that their sacrifice would save others.

I recall a news reporter who had interviewed a woman whose young son pointed out the “birdies” flying around the towers. She looked. The “birdies” were people -- jumping out of the inferno consuming the upper floors.

I do not need a photo today to remind me of all that horror and death, for that image is etched in my memory, not unlike the image of little John Kennedy saluting at his father’s funeral. Such images as these remain etched in the collective memory.

Duane Pitts

Moses Lake