As the early sun climbed into a cloudless sky, the city went about its business as usual. At the Starbucks on Union, a line of commuters waited for their tall cappuccinos. Joggers were jogging, cyclists were biking. Birds were singing high in the grand oaks of Midtown. Memphis was beginning a September Tuesday, and a beautiful one it was.
And then we started hearing the news, the horrible, unbelievable news that transfixed the country and forever altered the course of American history. It began with a kaleidoscope of images and speculative reporting. A plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. Was it a terrible accident or terrorism? Nobody knew. Stay tuned. We’ll have more as the story develops. Then, 18 minutes later, a second plane struck the other WTC tower and the intentional nature of the attacks became apparent.
We’d barely begun to let the enormity of these events sink in, when we learned that yet another airliner had crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Then, we watched in stunned disbelief as the tallest buildings in New York City collapsed upon themselves, one after another, killing thousands in a slow-motion horror movie.
By the time we’d learned of a fourth plane crashing in the middle of Pennsylvania, it seemed the chaos and carnage might not end soon. Were there more attacks coming? What the hell was happening?
With each new revelation of death and destruction came a queasy fear, a growing sense of awareness that the United States was no longer a safe haven, isolated from the bloody but distant terrorism that plagued the rest of the world. We too were vulnerable — at the mercy of an evil that seemed too deep to comprehend, too much to take in on that sunny September morning.
We called friends and family, no matter where they were, seeking assurance that they were okay, seeking affirmation that they too had seen the news, had shared — were sharing — the nightmare on everyone’s television.
The events of September 11, 2001, became a Pearl Harbor moment for all of us old enough to experience and remember the day. Anyone who lived through it can tell you where they were when they got the news. I first heard about it in my car, on Drake & Zeke’s morning radio show. They were at first discussing the incident as though it might have been an accident, maybe a private plane? No one knew. Soon, I’d switched to a more news-oriented station, and by the time I got to the Flyer office 15 minutes later, everyone on staff had gathered around a television.
“So,” said one Flyer reporter, after an hour or so, “I guess we’re not gonna go with that ‘Nightlife in Memphis’ cover story for tomorrow.”
It really wasn’t meant to be funny, but it somehow broke the spell, reminding us that we had a job to do, and that that job had changed. We cobbled together a reaction story and somehow got the paper to the printer a day late. And “9/11” became a number that would be forever etched in our brains.
Now, it’s 22 years later. Most college students weren’t even born in 2001. They studied 9/11 in high school history classes, just as my generation studied World War II. I don’t remember ever getting emotional while reading about Pearl Harbor in my history books, and that’s because I didn’t live it. I didn’t feel it. It was no more real to me than the battle of Gettysburg.
My father’s generation lived it and felt it. My dad, a Navy man, drove around Hiroshima in a jeep not long after the atom bomb fell, a thing that seems insane and impossible, looking back on it. But I know it happened because I saw the square, brown-tinted photos of the city, his jeep, and his ship docked in Hiroshima harbor in a weathered scrapbook he kept in a drawer.
That generation is mostly gone now, along with their emotions and memories of Pearl Harbor and World War II. Most of you reading this carry the emotions and memories of living through 9/11, another day that will live in infamy. Don’t keep them stuck away in a drawer. Share. History does have a tendency to repeat itself.
