As you get older you will no doubt learn about the events of September 11th, 2001 from us, other family, the media, and school. I won't get into the WHYs here - I still don't know if I can understand the mind of a terrorist.
This letter will be more of a description about what happened that day from my eyes. I don't get to tell the story very often and, the truth is, I don't like to. It's hard to recount something I consider traumatic knowing that for many many others the events of that day led to a tragic personal loss.
It was a national tragedy. When people talk about where they were, how they found out, I still get a little upset to hear folks talk about how scary it was when they heard about it on the morning news somewhere out on the West Coast. It was a national tragedy and I should be more understanding. It was an attack on the United States, but to me it was way more, it was an attack on the city and the people that I love.
Throughout the summer of 2001 I was working as a college intern on a City Council campaign in downtown Manhattan. It was a crowded primary, with something like eight Democratic challengers competing for one seat. I worked for Kwong Hui, a labor activist, who was a hard-working progressive idealist. We went door-to-door for months leading up to Primary Day, September 11th, 2001.
On September 10th I remember spending lots of time working with folks at the office, which doubled as the candidate's apartment, staring at volunteer lists and a map of the district trying to figure out how to best position our volunteers on the streets the next day. At around 1:30am, Kwong walked over to me as I stared the map and he said, "I'm ordering you to go home." His reasoning was that we had to get up early the next day, it was going to be a long day, and he needed everyone to get at least a few hours of sleep.
Reluctantly I went to my friend Luis' apartment, where Luis and my friend Niko were already sleeping, getting ready for their first ever day of political volunteering - something they had signed up for due to my pestering. Between toss and turns in my sleeping bag I finally fell asleep at around 3am, only to wake up to an alarm at 4:30am - we had to be out on our designated spots by 6am.
I remember arriving at East Broadway and Grand Street and setting up the table with all the campaign literature. It was a cool morning and the skies were blue and I had my head full of dreams of victory. Everything was going great...
At around 8:45am the volunteers at the table and I heard a loud boom behind us. We thought nothing of it, this is NYC and there's loud noises all the time. Just a couple of minutes afterward I left my station to head to NYU for my first class of the semester. My plan was to go to class and then rush back to finish the day campaigning.
As I rounded the corner I saw people on the street, in the middle of the street, looking up at the skyline. Cars were stopped and taxi cabs were pulled over to the curb with passengers just staring. As I followed their stares I saw thick black smoke coming from one of the World Trade Center towers. I couldn't wrap my head around what had happened, I thought there must have been a gas leak and explosion.
I called my Aunt Bella who was at home sick from the chemotherapy treatments she had been receiving and asked her if she was watching the news. She turned on the TV and saw nothing being reported. I told her I'd call her back.
I walked down East Broadway, towards the towers, because I had decided to head back to campaign headquarters and figure out what to do next. As I walked, I kept hearing rumors from people on the street that they had seen a plane crash into the building. What a terrible accident, I thought. My Aunt Bella called me to tell me what she was hearing on the news, basically that there was a commercial plane that crashed into the World Trade Center. As we talked on the cell phone I heard a loud roar and, as I looked up, saw a huge fiery explosion come from the other tower. Another plane?
The closer I got to the World Trade Center, the more I realized the extent of the destruction. There was paper and debris everywhere. There were people heading away from the towers looking frazzled and in shock. I even saw a lady being helped down the street with blood coming from her head. I knew then that this was way worse than I thought.
Kwong's apartment/campaign headquarters was about ten blocks away from the World Trade Center and by the time I got upstairs there were only two people there. Having seen the folks on the street, that worried me. Where were our people? We had something like 300 volunteers that were supposed to help us out that day. Where were they?
I remember staring at the TV coverage with the others and hating how slow the news seemed to be coming in. The anchors on the Today show started discussing what was happening as an "act of war." I had no idea what that meant still. We turned the radio on to 1010 WINS for better coverage and put the TV volume down. We stared at the image of the burning towers for what seemed like hours but, unfortunately for many, was only minutes. I remember praying that the police helicopters could land on the roof and get some folks off safely from there. I remember praying that the fire fighters would get to folks inside the building and get them out safely.
Then, I saw one of the towers on the screen disappear into a cloud of dust and smoke. I pointed at the screen in disbelief and heard as the reporter on the radio shouted about the tower collapsing. All of this was happening just outside the windows but we just stared at the screen.
As reports came in that there might have been another crash at the Pentagon and another hijacked plane still in the air, it finally hit me that this was a coordinated attack on the United States. And then I thought, how many more planes do they have?
Our campaign shifted gears quickly. Kwong, the campaign manager, and other volunteers on the street began to build stretchers for the injured and dead. Unfortunately, they wouldn't be used.
As we watched the second tower collapse, back in the office we began calling volunteers to ensure that everyone on our campaign was safe. Cell phone towers were overloaded that day and it was hard getting through to people. When the last volunteer was located at 1:30pm, I arrived at the difficult realization that, although everyone on our campaign was safe, there were thousands who probably were not.
I ended up walking back to my friend Luis' place around mid-afternoon and crashing on his floor for a couple of hours. When I awoke there was black smoke coming up from Ground Zero and NYC felt as still and silent as I've ever experienced it.
The events of that day are locked in me for as long as my memory will last. It may not be the most-heartbreaking story you'll hear about that day but to me it was a terrible day. I really do not like talking about it because many others are no longer with us, their voices silenced forever. But, I felt like I needed to put it down in writing so that you knew that your papa was nearby that day.
Almost 3,000 people died that day and I hope that in your lifetime you never experience something so tragic, so traumatic, like what happened on September 11, 2001.
Nine years later, I look at your little sleeping face and it fills me with hope. You may force me to look at the days of early September from a whole new perspective but I will never forget what happened that day, the lives lost, or the way New Yorkers worked together through the most traumatic day of their lives.
Eternally yours,
Tu papa
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