Remembering 9/11

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. For tens of millions of Americans, the impact of that day resonated through the ensuing years and decades in the form of a simple promise they made to themselves, to their children and to their country: Never forget. Yet a quarter-century after the 2001 attacks, 100 million Americans are too young to remember September 2001. It with this sense of obligation to pass on the searing experience of that day that The Daily Standard asked several local residents and former residents what they were doing on the morning of 9/11 and what they remember from that day. Here are their memories, presented in their own words.

JERRY LAFFIN

Rural Coldwater

Then: Mercer County Commissioner and farmer

Now: Farmer

[An Amish construction crew was putting up a new two-car garage that morning at Laffin's home on St. Anthony Road.]

I was just around here, in case they needed me, and I think I had the TV on, and then when I saw the planes go into the towers and so forth and knowing that they (Amish crew) didn't have TVs, they came up on the front porch to see it.

There (were) a lot of concerns of who is behind everything. With both towers going down, on the TV you seen all the smoke and so forth, and there was no question about it - there was going to be a lot of casualties, quite a lot of them because … that's where they went that morning to go to work.

(In the aftermath,) I think around here, a lot of us were concerned about it. I'm sure that the communities around here, if they knew that they had some people, some loved ones in that area at the time of when this happened, were concerned about it. Of course, there were definitely a lot of prayers went out … praying for the people that had to help the families who had lost loved ones in the towers going down and the plane out in Pennsylvania. It generally was on the minds of people and there was a lot of praying being done.

JONATHAN P. HEIN

Greenville (Fort Recovery native)

Then: Darke County Common Pleas Judge

Now: Visiting judge

It was the last day of a jury trial. Shortly after the first tower - I wrote it down in my notes, but like at 8:45 a.m. - I get this note from the staff, a plane hit a building in New York. I thought, well, a small plane might have blown into one, right? Then like a half hour later, I get another note, another plane hit a building in New York. … I kept the trial going. The bailiff put the jury in the jury room. I went to find out what was going on. And then you realize, this is craziness. I got the lawyers, and told them what was going on - told them we're going to continue the trial, (and) don't make a mention of this whole thing. We went all the way through the trial and got a verdict. At four o'clock, I told the jurors what had been going on all day. I reassured them they were safe. I told them there's nothing going on around here. The courthouse was secured. The sheriff had come up. The commissioners had made sure we had whatever security we thought we needed. Well, nobody knew what they needed - but there were devoted resources. [I told them,] "Everybody here is fine, but there's a big thing going on it looks like." But they were eight hours behind, on a day when everybody's watching every minute. That's a lot of information to take in for being that far behind. But all I could do is assure them that at this point they're safe.

(The jurors reactions were) I'm just going to say, confusion. Nobody freaked out, because you didn't know enough to panic or freak out. Only when you get a lot of information do you get concerned. They didn't have enough information to even process it. It was such a new, unusual thing. They took the information in, and then they left. Like, I've always wondered how did that work out for them?

Everybody's safe. I can't do anything about the event, but I cannot lose the work we've already done. It would take months to get the case back up on the jury list, (with) lawyers' schedules, everything else, (and also with) witnesses. I wasn't going to lose the effort that we already had in it. I think it was day three of the trial. I can't lose two days of work over something I can't do anything about. I'm not an emotional person. I'm an analytical personality. So it's like, what can you do that's positive? I did what I thought was positive.

JENNY WILL

Minster

Then: Fifth grader, Marion Local Schools

Now: Speech language pathologist

I was a fifth grader at Marion Local. I was in class. I remember the guidance counselor coming into our classroom and kind of talking to us about what happened. But being a fifth grader, I definitely didn't, you know, understand what was truly going on.

And I think a lot of us were probably confused, like all my classmates were probably confused too. But I remember going home after school that day, and my mom had the news on TV, and I remember it being on the news, the plane hitting the tower, one of the towers, and just thinking like probably not good.

But still, I'm like, I'm young, so I don't know if I truly understood, but I knew it was bad.

I remember there being all this patriotism (afterward), but I don't know if I have a good example, to be honest, of something specific that went on event-wise. People's patriotism just showed a lot more. You had all these country music songs - Toby Keith and Alan Jackson, "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning."

It wasn't until I was older, in 2019, my husband and I took a trip to New York City and went to the 9-11 memorial. That was sweet. And I felt like that - going through that, I finally, like, got it fully. I felt like going through that 9/11 memorial, then it hit me. I was like, "Holy cow!" And now I remember so much of what we saw there.

GREG FREEWALT

St. Marys

Then: Mayor of St. Marys

Now: Retired

I was at work at Omni Manufacturing, at my desk. I was in sales at that time. A fellow co-worker came in and said, "Hey, you've gotta see what's on television here." … I walked on down the hall and that's when I saw the north tower with the smoke rolling out of it. And I thought, oh my, some pilot has really screwed up, or somebody's screwed up somewhere. We were talking, and watching, and then I don't know, 15-16 minutes later, the south tower was struck. At that time, the announcers come forward with, we were under attack. At that time everybody's kind of in a daze. What in the world is going on? Is it Russia attacking us? Are we getting close to a nuclear war? What's happening at this minute? We were totally lost at that moment, as to what was going on.

That evening, we had a big prayer group out in the park, and it was well covered. Many people there and people spoke and ministers gave prayer for all the loss of lives and everything. I'm still in a daze, and I'm thinking, this is an Islamic group, but this is not all the Islamic people. Are we going to try to target them like we did the Japanese that lived in the United States when Pearl Harbor was hit? We treated them like dirt and ordered them together. I was frightened (for them), we have our own idiots out there that can pull something- burn their schools and mosques - everything else. I was afraid that something like this might happen.

But then in our prayer group, I know a couple of our firemen spoke. This was a brotherhood of many firemen that got killed when the towers came down, and they were very broken up. It was a very emotional meeting. I was there, and went through it and talked to a lot of people, but I did not address the crowd. I didn't think I knew enough at that time to try to say something to the people there, and not have the right information. At the council meeting they had opened it up with prayer for all those that lost lives, and their families.

BRUCE KNAPKE

York County, Penn. (Coldwater native)

Then: Worked at an advertising firm. Typically stayed 3 nights a week at the World Trade Center Marriott Hotel

Now: Retired

I went up that morning on the PATH train into the World Trade Center. Instead of checking into the hotel, I walked out because I had to teach a class or run a training session on some software. Luckily, I didn't go into the hotel because a few minutes after I walked out of the south tower, I heard an explosion. It sounded like a loud bang, so I didn't really pay attention to what it was. In retrospect … it sounded like a jet, but it only lasted for a second before the bang. It sounded like a roar.

I had to go to the second Chase building [one of his clients] outside … and (the floating paper) reminded me of a ticker-tape parade, but a lot of the paper was oval-shaped and still smoking or had burning edges all around it. People were kind of saying a helicopter crashed, you know, a plane hit the tower (or) a bomb went off. There was a lot of speculation where I was at Chase Plaza. There was a lot of panic on the streets. I finally got my daughter on the phone who was in college at the time and said, "Hey, I'm okay. There's a fire at the World Trade Center" - and instantly at that time, I heard another jet and watched it crashed into the south tower. I saw the south tower get hit and I took off running. Everything went silent because the explosion actually shook me, pushed me back. I took off running towards the South Street seaport. My thought was to go into the river if any more planes crashed. I knew we were under attack at that point, that very instant.

I went into shock for 30 minutes, because it's 30 minutes I lost time. When I kind of started to come back to, there was a radio and they said that they closed all the airspace around New York. I walked into Chase Bank and went up to the 14th floor, and all of a sudden, our whole building shook and everything went black outside. It was a very clear day besides the smoke from the towers. Everyone was yelling (that) our building was hit, so we started running down the stairwell. Smoke and dust started pouring up the stair steps so we had to get off and I thought we were in the basement, but we were in fact on the 4th floor.

[He remembers thinking about] how the world changed, you know, that everything was going to change from that point [and] how lucky I was and how we didn't know who made it [and] who didn't make it.

BILL SELL

Celina

Then: Teacher, Celina City Schools

Now: Retired

A girl from the office who usually delivered notes for kids to call their mom or whatnot stopped by [the class he was teaching] and said, "Mr. Sell, a plane flew into the World Trade Center tower," and of course, I thought she was talking about a small passenger plane. I said, "How is that possible?"

She told me it was a large commercial airliner that struck the tower in a suspected terrorist attack. My class got very quiet. They were underclassmen.

[The next class came into the room.]

Now the word's kind of out in the hallways, and my students were saying, "You've got to turn the TV on," and I was in the process of doing that, and I turned it on just as the second jet hit, and the syntax and the verbiage of the TV reporters was so shocking, even profanity and just base anguish in their voices, that every one of my kids and myself were just glued to this because we could see what had happened and there was so much smoke and debris from the first (plane).

We realized what had happened and everybody was talking about how it was intentional to take human life, and it was, in fact, terrorism. The question, of course, was who and why, and there were all kinds of theories going around about were these people from the Middle East? Were they domestic terrorists? Why were they using commercial airliners? And so all of the questions that were probably going around the entire country, my students and colleagues were all discussing as well, and from kind of a political perspective we knew that there was unrest, and we knew that we had obviously enemies around the world, but we didn't have any clue that it was this severe or drastic.

The Methodist church right on Main Street was going to have a service that night, on the night of Sept. 11, and I went in there and it was packed and the only place to go, I think, was up in the balcony, (where I sat with an older gentleman.)

I remember him telling me, "I was at a remarkably similar situation, memorial service, in this same church right after Pearl Harbor." So that was 60 years before. That kind of put things in perspective that even though it was so incredibly tragic and serious, our country's been through quite a few situations.

We thought even conserving fuel would be a good idea. I had a son in the high school, I think he was a freshman, and I had one that was in the seventh grade. So (the next day) we walked to school, and I remember pointing to the skies and saying, "Look, there's not jets, there's no vapor trails, there's nothing in the sky. And if we do see something in the sky we know that's military." And even those two (children), they were pretty young. They realized how serious things were.

DOUG MEYER

Celina

Then: Pastor, St. John Lutheran Church

Now: Retired

I was out at the fairgrounds. I was asked to speak that morning to the Mercer County retirement group and so I was in the course of speaking and didn't know until I was done that a word was out that something happened. Of course, I then went home and turned on the television and saw. I really didn't know at first know whether it was accidental, but once I turned on the TV, I saw more that it was an attack.

My first initial reaction was I wanted to call my family. I was horrified by what I saw, but then like so many others, I thought of my wife who was teaching at the high school, my children at different parts in the country and I wanted to call them.

I think (the reaction of co-workers) was sadness (and) deep concerns for other safety, as well. A couple of days afterward, our ministerial association here in Celina had a community prayer service at St. Paul United Methodist Church and it was filled."

One of the things that I remember most (was that) our son had just enlisted in the United States Navy six months before. A couple of days after, he was able to call us and he said, "Mom and Dad, we're leaving in the morning, but I can't tell you where I'm going." He could not tell us and that was the last we heard from him for months because they could not make contact. He was on an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. John C. Stennis [a nuclear aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf].

(I remember) the response of being stunned, of being deeply concerned … but also a time of deep prayer and people really coming to worship on that Sunday following. This community has rallied around many things and that's why I've always been impressed with our community.

ADAM LIETTE

Celina

Then: Working during a year after high school

Now: Master Sergeant, U.S. Army; marketing director, the Celina company

I was at my parents' house. I'd finished working that morning and went back home and was sitting there, I think playing Sega, (like) any normal Tuesday. At first it was like, is this really happening? Oh, it must be an accident, and then I basically turned on the TV and about three minutes later you saw the second plane hit the tower, and at that point we knew it wasn't just an accident, it was something far more serious.

(That day) and the subsequent actions that our nation had to take ultimately set me in the direction that I went with my military service. I never would have joined the Army had it not been for the 9/11 event. It was just my service was ultimately a couple years removed.

(In the aftermath, I remember)* just the uncertainty around everything in everyday life. Were we going to war? What was every day going to look like, even simple things like better fill up your gas tanks. It seems arbitrary now looking back, but there was so much we didn't know, that the immediate need was to take care of each other and like making sure your neighbors were OK and your friends were OK and your family was OK. It really hit later on in my freshman year at Capital (University). I became friends with someone whose dad was working in the Pentagon, and so it's one of those things where like the full impact of 9/11, I don't think hit us really that day. But for me, it came in drips and drabs as I became more worldly, as a I met more people, and ultimately continued down the path that my life ended up going.

I remember the day after 9/11 more than anything. It was like we as a country forgot or temporarily paused our disagreements and chose to smile. Just the simple acts of kindness to each other, and the we-can-get-through-anything (mentality.) That's just something that's always stuck with me. I would never want to go through 9/11 again, but I wish sometimes America could go back to 9/12.

Reporting by Erin Gardner, William Kincaid, Abigail Miller and Jerry Martin.