Let's remember 9/11/01

PODCAST: Former FBI agent and American hero Ali Soufan on the most important lessons to learn from 9/11 + the tragedy at Mỹ Lai: an American shame

When I see the Twin Towers that dominated the Manhattan skyline for the first 30 years of my life appear in an old movie, newscast, documentary or TV show, my reaction is always the same. It makes me feel gut-punched and heartbroken.

I was listening to Howard Stern with a colleague and childhood friend from Green Brook, New Jersey, from my truck as we drove away from the Republican National Committee building between the US Capitol and US Supreme Court 22 years ago this morning — at the end of a moment in time during which history was ruptured by violence and murder. We listened as Stern described the towers crumbling to dust in perhaps the greatest live narration of an unfolding news event in the history of radio. It was astonishing to contemplate in the hour before we were able to see it on a television. The towers were gone. Everyone knew the loss of life would be devastating. The peace of the world was gone. The decade that followed the Cold War, launched the internet era, traversed a millennia, and was filled with optimism, ended in an instant. The post-Cold War’s fleeting moment of Pax Americana and the lost possibilities of that moment were self-evident. The world that had existed was gone forever. The end of history — as it turned out — was not at hand. 

My grandmother was born in the United States, but returned to Kraków, Poland, with her father as an infant and was raised there. She came back to the United States as a teenager and lived her life in Jersey City, New Jersey. She married my grandfather, Eddie Carroll, a bus driver, and they had four children. My father grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey. They all watched the towers start to rise off the ground from lower Manhattan from 1968 - 1971.

It seems astonishing that the Twin Towers were greeted with disdain by some architectural critics, who lacked the ability to see the elegance and genius of Seattle-born Minoru Yamasaki’s design.

When I was a child the Twin Towers were awe-inspiring. We could see them on a clear day from any hill around North Plainfield, New Jersey. From Babcia’s row house on Custer Avenue they towered over the skyline and glistened, glowed and captivated anyone who saw them rise over lower Manhattan like jewels.

Here I am with my sister and Babcia atop the Towers in the late 1970s:

Here are some more pictures captured on that day, which linger permanently as memories:

When I close my eyes and think about New York City, I see it as it was, not as it is today. I suspect I am not alone.

My father is one of the thousands of Americans who worked at Ground Zero in the days, weeks and months after the attacks. This was his Verizon work helmet and jacket that he wore on-site:

My sister also lost a friend, Jennifer Fialko, that day. She’d beaten cancer, but didn't survive a terrorist attack.

My sister (R) and Jennifer Fialko in their senior year at the University of New Hampshire in 1994

Today, let us remember the dead of 9/11. Let’s pray for their families and for their peace.

Let’s remember the first Americans to fight back: the passengers of United Flight 93, who saved the United States Capitol from destruction 7,057 days before it was ravaged in an attack orchestrated by nineteen different hijackers:

Let’s remember the police and firefighters who ran into the buildings and died, so thousands could live.

Let’s remember the thousands of American and Allied soldiers who fought, were wounded and died on faraway battlefields avenging the barbarism that attacked us.

The man below is an American hero. His name is Ali Soufan. He was in the Middle East racing to prevent the attack that everyone knew was coming 22 years ago today. He came incredibly close to thwarting the 9/11 attacks. Listen to his incredible story on this week’s episode of The Warning podcast below, or you can do so on Apple Podcasts or Spotify:

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With President Biden in Vietnam this past weekend, I thought I’d re-share an essay on my experience at Mỹ Lai earlier this year: