Memories of 9/11, 20 Years Later
To the extent that this journal has a theme, it's the fallibility of human memory, and my resistance to that fallibility by trying to document all sorts of things about my life. Sometimes that documentation is created shortly after the event, other times it's not until the end of the year, and quite often it's decades after the fact, but regardless of the time frame the vast majority of my posts are about remembering. Only rarely do I offer commentary on current events or center entries on something other than my own experience.
With that in mind, this Atlantic article about memory was vastly interesting to me, in particular the parts that talk about how people remember red letter dates that stand out as opposed to ongoing periods of time like the pandemic. You won't be surprised to learn that even for red letter dates, studies have shown that people remember them poorly.
To this point in my life, there have been only two such red letter dates - the Challenger Disaster and 9/11. I thought that the Capitol Attack might rise to that level, but apparently the country has stuffed that one so thoroughly down the memory hole that it might not be remembered next year, let alone in 50 years. In any event, with 9/11 being 20 years ago today, I thought it was would be apt time to try to write down what I remember now, twenty years later. How accurate it is is, of course, debatable.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was in what I then expected to my last week living in Cleveland for the foreseeable future, and maybe ever. I had actually already been there longer than expected. For a bunch of reasons that aren't relevant to this memory, I had decided to enter the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico after my graduation from college in May 2001. My original ship date was June 2001, but I broke a bone in my foot shortly before that. This impacted my ability to do the physical training necessary to hit the qualification deadline, and upon consultation with the recruiting officer he suggested that I target January 2002 instead.
With this new deadline in mind, my new plan was to stay in Cleveland during the summer of 2001, then move home in the fall of 2001 before shipping in January 2002. I lived in the fraternity house for one final summer, hosted what I thought would be my last radio show on Tuesday mornings as "The Crossroads and the Watchtower", and worked register in the mornings at The Boarding House Deli. The rest of the time I worked out or goofed off.
My original intent was to leave for North Dakota at the end of August when the fall semester started, but as I recall some kind of testing date for the Marines was scheduled for the week of September 9, so when the fall semester started the active chapter let me crash in the living room for a couple of weeks so I could go to that appointment. I was slated to drive home somewhere around September 14. This worked out ok because I was able to go to a fraternity wedding in the Buffalo area in early September.
Because the fall semester had started, I wasn't doing radio any longer on Tuesday, September 11. Instead, I was working one of my last shifts at the Boarding House that morning, along with the owner Marty. Some time after 9am, one of the guys from the Boarding House restaurant next store came in and said the news said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. At this early stage there wasn't much other detail. I think I mentioned the time a bomber crashed into the Empire State Building, which made this crash seem interesting but hardly catastrophic. Obviously, that was wildly inaccurate.
From there... I don't actually have real clear memories. I remember that there was a lot of rumor going around even among the couple of us working that day at the restaurant and the deli, a lot of it centered around a plane being supposedly forced down at Cleveland's airport with hijackers on it. That obviously didn't happen. I remember someone running in and saying that one of the towers had actually collapsed.
We didn't have a television at work, so I didn't see the now indelible images of the planes hitting the towers until I got off and went back to the fraternity house. I say that while acknowledging I have almost no memory of what happened on the rest of that day after work. I mean, I assume I was watching television at the house, because I can't imagine what else I would have been doing, but I don't remember it. Who did I talk to? Who was I watching it with? I have no idea whatsoever. I could probably make some guesses based on who lived in the house then, but they'd be nothing more than guesses. When did I learn about the Pentagon or Flight 93? No idea.
Most of my memories of this day are like memories of memories. I mean, I've seen the video, repeatedly, and the pictures, but none if it was live. I mostly remember tremendous confusion. There isn't even anger or sadness in those memories, just confusion. I have some vague recollection that I tried to give blood somewhere on campus and that the line was out the door, but I couldn't tell you if that was true.
What I do remember more clearly is two incidents after 9/11.
1. A few days later when I loaded up my car and drove back to North Dakota. If my Marine Corps appointment happened between 9/11 and my departure I don't remember it at all. Anyway, it seemed like every overpass along the entire 19 hour drive had multiple American flags hanging from it, and plenty of signage as well. I wonder sometimes if 9/11 was the last time that the country has actually been largely united around a single event, let alone a largely cohesive view of that single event.
2. In January, I flew for the first time since 9/11 when I went from North Dakota back to Cleveland. On one leg of the flight, the captain came on over the intercom to do the usual greetings, and said something like "I want to encourage all of you to follow the instructions that the flight attendants give you. Due to recent events, we're all paying really close attention to folks who don't, and we know that your fellow passengers will be more than happy to help restrain anybody who is causing problems." Cue a lot of nervous laughter.
When I started thinking about this post, I was able to recreate pretty easily why I was still on campus in September and the related details, but the actual day itself eludes me. I'd like to tell you the things I wrote here are 100% accurate, but if I had to swear to its accuracy, all I could really commit to was "I was working at the Boarding House and somebody came in and said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center." Everything else is like mist. Which leads to two things:
- Remember that when somebody tells you they remember something perfectly, science says they are probably wrong.
- A distressing amount of the time, the history that is accepted is the version that everybody agreed to, which may well not be the version that is the most accurate or best supported by data.
With that in mind, this Atlantic article about memory was vastly interesting to me, in particular the parts that talk about how people remember red letter dates that stand out as opposed to ongoing periods of time like the pandemic. You won't be surprised to learn that even for red letter dates, studies have shown that people remember them poorly.
To this point in my life, there have been only two such red letter dates - the Challenger Disaster and 9/11. I thought that the Capitol Attack might rise to that level, but apparently the country has stuffed that one so thoroughly down the memory hole that it might not be remembered next year, let alone in 50 years. In any event, with 9/11 being 20 years ago today, I thought it was would be apt time to try to write down what I remember now, twenty years later. How accurate it is is, of course, debatable.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was in what I then expected to my last week living in Cleveland for the foreseeable future, and maybe ever. I had actually already been there longer than expected. For a bunch of reasons that aren't relevant to this memory, I had decided to enter the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico after my graduation from college in May 2001. My original ship date was June 2001, but I broke a bone in my foot shortly before that. This impacted my ability to do the physical training necessary to hit the qualification deadline, and upon consultation with the recruiting officer he suggested that I target January 2002 instead.
With this new deadline in mind, my new plan was to stay in Cleveland during the summer of 2001, then move home in the fall of 2001 before shipping in January 2002. I lived in the fraternity house for one final summer, hosted what I thought would be my last radio show on Tuesday mornings as "The Crossroads and the Watchtower", and worked register in the mornings at The Boarding House Deli. The rest of the time I worked out or goofed off.
My original intent was to leave for North Dakota at the end of August when the fall semester started, but as I recall some kind of testing date for the Marines was scheduled for the week of September 9, so when the fall semester started the active chapter let me crash in the living room for a couple of weeks so I could go to that appointment. I was slated to drive home somewhere around September 14. This worked out ok because I was able to go to a fraternity wedding in the Buffalo area in early September.
Because the fall semester had started, I wasn't doing radio any longer on Tuesday, September 11. Instead, I was working one of my last shifts at the Boarding House that morning, along with the owner Marty. Some time after 9am, one of the guys from the Boarding House restaurant next store came in and said the news said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. At this early stage there wasn't much other detail. I think I mentioned the time a bomber crashed into the Empire State Building, which made this crash seem interesting but hardly catastrophic. Obviously, that was wildly inaccurate.
From there... I don't actually have real clear memories. I remember that there was a lot of rumor going around even among the couple of us working that day at the restaurant and the deli, a lot of it centered around a plane being supposedly forced down at Cleveland's airport with hijackers on it. That obviously didn't happen. I remember someone running in and saying that one of the towers had actually collapsed.
We didn't have a television at work, so I didn't see the now indelible images of the planes hitting the towers until I got off and went back to the fraternity house. I say that while acknowledging I have almost no memory of what happened on the rest of that day after work. I mean, I assume I was watching television at the house, because I can't imagine what else I would have been doing, but I don't remember it. Who did I talk to? Who was I watching it with? I have no idea whatsoever. I could probably make some guesses based on who lived in the house then, but they'd be nothing more than guesses. When did I learn about the Pentagon or Flight 93? No idea.
Most of my memories of this day are like memories of memories. I mean, I've seen the video, repeatedly, and the pictures, but none if it was live. I mostly remember tremendous confusion. There isn't even anger or sadness in those memories, just confusion. I have some vague recollection that I tried to give blood somewhere on campus and that the line was out the door, but I couldn't tell you if that was true.
What I do remember more clearly is two incidents after 9/11.
1. A few days later when I loaded up my car and drove back to North Dakota. If my Marine Corps appointment happened between 9/11 and my departure I don't remember it at all. Anyway, it seemed like every overpass along the entire 19 hour drive had multiple American flags hanging from it, and plenty of signage as well. I wonder sometimes if 9/11 was the last time that the country has actually been largely united around a single event, let alone a largely cohesive view of that single event.
2. In January, I flew for the first time since 9/11 when I went from North Dakota back to Cleveland. On one leg of the flight, the captain came on over the intercom to do the usual greetings, and said something like "I want to encourage all of you to follow the instructions that the flight attendants give you. Due to recent events, we're all paying really close attention to folks who don't, and we know that your fellow passengers will be more than happy to help restrain anybody who is causing problems." Cue a lot of nervous laughter.
When I started thinking about this post, I was able to recreate pretty easily why I was still on campus in September and the related details, but the actual day itself eludes me. I'd like to tell you the things I wrote here are 100% accurate, but if I had to swear to its accuracy, all I could really commit to was "I was working at the Boarding House and somebody came in and said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center." Everything else is like mist. Which leads to two things:
- Remember that when somebody tells you they remember something perfectly, science says they are probably wrong.
- A distressing amount of the time, the history that is accepted is the version that everybody agreed to, which may well not be the version that is the most accurate or best supported by data.
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