Reflecting On 9/11 24 Years Later

"Your generation will remember 9-11 like ours has always remembered the attack on Pearl Harbor," my mother's reaction 24 years ago today to the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were spot on. The events of that and subsequent days are burned into my memory just like it happened yesterday.

I was Deputy Director of the Tuscaloosa County Emergency Management Agency at the time and was getting ready for work when the phone rang. It was my boss Ron Hampel asking if I had seen what was happening in New York City. When I said no, he urged me to turn on the TV immediately.

The first thing I saw was a replay of a commercial airliner hitting the World Trade Center in Manhattan. The announcers were talking about how it was a major tragedy and speculating about how such an accident could happen. They even brought up July 28, 1945, when a B-25 Mitchell bomber piloted by Birmingham native Lieutenant Colonel William F. Smith Jr. crashed into the Empire State Building when he became disoriented in fog.

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While the anchors were recounting the Empire State Building collision, yet another airliner struck the World Trade Center. It was obvious that this event was not a horrible malfunction of some sort, the U.S. was under attack.

As I headed downtown the questions outnumbered the answers. Who could be doing this, is it terrorist or a rouge nation? How could they commandeer such large commercial aircraft and fly them into one of the most recognizable symbols of the United States? Are there more attacks coming? Is this a prelude to something even more horrendous?

We didn't know what was happening and if the New York events might be replicated in other cities. The governor ordered all county EMAs and the state EOC to activate and monitor the day's events.

Not long after arriving at the EOC I found out the attacks were not over, yet another large passenger plane had gone down, this one just north of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a town of less than 200. Speculation was the plane was enroute to Washington D.C., perhaps to hit the nation's capital or The White House.

Later we learned the actions of some of the 40 passengers themselves brought Flight 93 down. A memorial sits on the site of the crash in honor of the crew and passengers who brought Flight 93 down, keeping it from hitting the terrorist's target - the U.S. Capital.

Yet another flight had been diverted, this one with the Pentagon in its bullseye. It flew directly into the symbol of American military might.  American Airlines Flight 77 ploughed into the E-Ring and embedded into the C and B Rings of the world's largest building. Alabamian Major Dwayne Williams was among the 125 who perished.

From the massive 9-11 investigation in the weeks and days after the attacks we learned they were indeed perpetrated by Al Queda terrorist who had actually learned to fly in the U.S.

But today's anniversary is not about the animals that attacked us, it is about our fellow Americans who lost their lives, the first responders who rushed into the chaos, the surviving families and the men and women who have fought and died in the subsequent "War on Terrorism".

The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and had a profound and lasting impact on the U.S. and the world. It changed this nation forever. It brought about the Department of Homeland Security, shook up the President's Cabinet, instituted the TSA and forced much tighter airport security. The event prompted the adoption of September as "National Preparedness Month" to remind Americans to be prepared for crisis.

For a while 9-11 brought our nation together like nothing had since Pearl Harbor. Churches were packed for weeks as people turned to their faith, first responders became heroes and Republicans and Democrats stood shoulder-to-shoulder singing "God Bless America" on the capitol steps.

For an entirely too brief moment in time we were not Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, progressives or independents, we were just Americans.

(NOTE: To learn about the impacts of the 9-1-1 attacks click HERE for oral histories provided by 9-11Memorial.org)