11 Sep Where Were You?
Where were you that morning? I was in Geneva. I was working with Charles Brower and Pieter Bekker on a hearing before the United Nations Compensation Commission. Across the table from us were nine Iraqis arguing that Iraq should not be required to pay compensation for the millions our client spent protecting their employees from Iraqi missiles during the Gulf War. Immediately after the hearing the top American working at the UNCC came over to us. I was expecting the normal pleasantries. But his face was ashen. He said, “I am sorry but I must run. I have just received news that a plane just hit the World Trade Center.”
We quickly departed the UN complex and went to our hotel. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching television. I watched the twin towers fall on forty channels in over a dozen languages. Every channel was the same. Hour upon hour of coverage about the attacks. With the exception of the occasional images of women dancing on Arab television channels, the world appeared united. Our Swiss hosts could not have been more sympathetic. The most pressing concern was confirming whether or not the son-in-law of the general counsel who was with us in Geneva had made his scheduled flight from Boston to Los Angeles. He had, but it was a different flight than the one that crashed into the World Trade Center.
I had two immediate thoughts that day sitting in that hotel in Geneva. First, I could sense that that day, September 11, 2001, we were all Americans. We were all New Yorkers. The world was united that day. Or at least it felt that way from my vantage point.
Second, I thought how odd to be sitting here in Geneva trying to seek reparations for the last war and now before my very eyes another war is upon us. I knew it was only a matter of time before the United States would respond.
My next concern was getting home. All the flights to the United States were cancelled. I was desperate to get back home to California to see my family and friends, and teach my classes. I stayed a couple nights with a friend and then caught one of the first flights to the United States on September 13. On my flight home I could not help but notice that the plastic silverware had replaced the regular utensils I had had on the way to Geneva. When I arrived at customs in Atlanta the airport was empty. We were one of the first overseas flights to arrive there since September 11. The airport staff were waving American flags as we were clearing customs. Everyone just off the plane seemed terribly relieved to be safely on American soil. We were home. And it felt different. It was different.
Where were you when you heard the news that September morning? Share your story.
Watching the buildings collapse, from a pier on the Hudson. The lady standing next to me did the same. Her husband worked there. I will never forget.
I have no story. Where I was that day I find rather insignificant and irrelevant. For me the story remains the terrorist attacks themselves, the victims, their friends and loved ones, and those who selflessly aided others….
Second week of law school, en route to class. I was pissed off then when professors, students, and officials remarked feebly that “somehow now the law hardly matters.” And I’m pissed off now that the day marks any sort of real, as opposed to cynically manufactured, change in the rules of the game.
I was walking to morning class at the university, when I passed the common lounge. It was generally empty at that time of the morning, but I halted when I saw that it was packed to the point of standing room only.
At the time I arrived there, they were still reporting it could be a smaller aircraft. One look at the amount of fire pouring from the hole convinced me that was not the case.
Regrettably, I cannot remember whether I actually saw the second plane hit the building on live feed or not. I know I paused there for some time, before continuing to class, where little was accomplished, as most were too distracted to pay attention.
I was woken up by my roommates and I arrived in front of the T.V. just in time to see the second plane hit. I didn’t really understand what was happening. I still don’t know if I can truly fathom the event. I went about my routine and took the train to school and was on time to my morning contracts class. Few were on the train, and even fewer were in class. I don’t think I really understood the gravity of the situation until they closed and evacuated my school and all of the surrounding federal buildings. It’s a strange feeling for an American…to feel so completely vulnerable and unsure.
I had just come to work at Bellevue Hospital. All doctors who did surgery were aked to report to the Emergency Room. eventually we were sent to Labor and Delivery, where we would have done surgery in a cesarean section room had casualties come in. (I’m a gynecologic oncologist trained to perform surgery on the GI and urinary tracts, as well as the female reproductive tract, and can do simple vascular repairs in a pinch.)
But no casualties came in. Almost everone either died or escaped.
In New York, most office workers report to work aftre 9:00 a.m. Had the planes struck an hour later, 10 times as many people would have died.