By Caitlin Long

The New York Times front page on September 12th, 2001.

September 11th, 2001 is a date every American knows as a one of great defeat and sorrow. The September 11th attacks, more commonly referred to as 9/11, were coordinated by the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda. Nineteen members of the terrorist group hijacked four commercial airliners and flew the planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and an empty field in Pennsylvania. In one morning alone, over three thousand people lost their lives due to the terrorism. America was under attack.

Almost all Americans who were old enough to comprehend the events remember the feelings and unbelievable shock of 9/11. Everyone has their own story and connection to the day. In my case, I was close to losing my dad.

My father, Patrick Long, has worked for the investment banking company Keefe, Bruyette, and Woods (KBW) for over 20 years. KBW had two offices in the World Trade Center in 2WTC (the South Tower), on the 88th and 89th floor. My dad’s job required him to frequently commute to and from the New York and Richmond offices. During the month of September in 2001, my mom was eight months pregnant with me, and my father says that “Mom was very clear about not traveling prior to the due date of October 1st.” As a result of this family travel ban, my father was in Richmond on 9/11.

North Tower in flames. Photo credit: Anonymous.

When the first plane hit the 1WTC (the North Tower) a little before 9 a.m., my father was on the phone with the New York office. He describes the moment: “The phone went dead; we didn’t know what was going on.” Then, the second plane hit 2WTC, below the 88th floor. In Richmond, “it was chaos.” The Richmond office of KBW was receiving phone calls from worried and confused family and friends asking about the well-being of the KBW employees in New York. The team in Richmond could not give any definite answers, as everyone was in the same state of utter confusion and worry. The horrifying truth, according to my father, was “Unless there was physical proof a person was alive, one had to assume the person was dead.”

Although my father was not in New York City the day of the attacks, he had many friends and coworkers who were in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Co-Head of KBW’s Depository Investment Banking Group Scott Anderson has worked for KBW since 2000. Anderson was in the New York office on 9/11 and said it was a “normal morning, I got to work at a normal time.” He was working at his desk on the 88th floor of 2WTC, talking to coworkers when “the world changed in just a second.”

9/11 monument at Ground Zero today. Photo credit: user Dave Z via Flickr.

Anderson felt the building he was in move from the impact of plane hitting 1WTC next door at 8:46 a.m.. When he looked outside to see what had happened, he saw fire, papers flying in the air, debris on the ground, and a gaping hole in the other tower. From that point, Anderson told the team on the 88th floor to “just get out of here.” Anderson and the people who chose to follow him went directly to the express elevator and were able to escape in time, before the second plane hit 2WTC just 17 minutes later, at 9:03 a.m.

Tragically, many other KBW employees were still in the office when the plane hit. People were calling loved ones from elevator shafts and offices, saying they would not make it home. There was an abundant amount of self-sacrifice in the buildings; two KBW bankers shoved their administrative assistants out of elevator shafts in order to save their lives, ultimately sacrificing their own. People were huddled up in conference rooms and underneath desks. Some people tried to escape, but the plane hit below the 88th floor, making it more difficult for those above the crash to find a way down and out of the building.

At the time, KBW employed around 210 people, and on 9/11, 67 of those died. One third of the staff lost their life in one day. Long, Anderson, and those who survived had to try to figure out how the company and its families were going to recover. The decision to rebuild the company was based off of the idea that “we got something special,” according to Anderson. KBW wanted to be able to take care of the families of employees who died during the attack, and a KBW Family Fund was created that ensured families could be financially steady. Anderson said the company had “a focus of doing something positive in the face of something negative” and that “these events will not defeat us.”

My father Patrick Long and I, circa 2004. Photo credit: Maria Long.

I asked my father what he was feeling near the end of 2001, a time when his company was healing while he was simultaneously experiencing fatherhood for the first time, as I was born on October 2nd, 2001, just 21 days after the attacks. His response was: “How would you feel if you loss 67 friends and then have your first child born? That is what I felt.”

Just days after the 9/11 attacks, my father returned to New York by train for a memorial service, and “the World Trade Center was still on fire.” In those following days, families received certificates of death for their loved ones, with the cause of death listed as “homicide.” Many people were inspired to sign up to serve in the military. Anderson “saw the kindness of humanity,” and “everyone got out of their busy world and everyone gathered together and tried to help.” The nation came together and was appreciative of life, friends, and family. My father recounted that “The country was different the months after 9/11. Everyone was waving the American flag. It brought Americans together with a unified sense of purpose.”

After the attacks on 9/11, the fight against terror began. My had father served in the Navy for five years after graduating from the US Naval Academy in 1992. I asked my father if he ever felt a need to go back and rejoin the military after the terrorist attacks, and he said, “As a veteran, the first thing I wanted to do was fight, but your mom was nine months pregnant. I knew I had friends who were down range, and I knew I couldn’t be there for them.” My father had a battle of his own, working to rebuild a heartbroken company and raise his first child.

US soldiers in Afghanistan. Photo credit: White House photo by Eric Draper.

A classmate and friend of my father’s is an active-duty Navy SEAL, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns regarding his service. His experience on 9/11 was very different compared to most Americans. He was deployed at the time on a submarine and did not have access to the media, meaning he didn’t get to live through seeing the events of September 11th in real time on television, which was most Americans’ experience that day and in the weeks that followed. When he finally saw footage and images from the attacks, he was in another country and “felt very disconnected from it.” Like most Americans, he and his unit had many questions and anxiety regarding the safety of friends and family who worked in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

The SEAL returned from deployment about a month after 9/11, and “seeing how deeply it affected my country, [9/11] renewed my commitment to service the county.” The terrorist attacks “helped frame my mindset through what would end up being several deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting against both the ideology that caused the 9/11 attacks, and the bad people perpetuating it.” The SEAL felt as if he owed his best effort to the American people to fight and “represent my country and directly engage with the enemy.”

After September 11th, the SEAL said his “service and profession gained much more meaning,” and he “was responsible and accountable to the American people as a US military service member.” As a service member to our country, he knows the sacrifice it takes to put one’s life at risk to protect others, and he “will never forget and will always honor the sacrifice and bravery of both regular citizens as well as our first responders, who knowingly risked and lost their own lives to try and help fellow human beings.”

Shortly after 9/11, America began deploying troops to Afghanistan. The War on Terror, the longest war in American history, had begun. Osama bin Laden, the primary extremist that led the organization of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, continued to lead Islamic extremist groups to commit terror in the Middle East.

NBC Special Report on President Obama announcing the termination of bin Laden in 2011. Image courtesy of NBC News.

In May 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed in a SEAL Team Six operation in Pakistan. After bin Laden was killed, many Americans felt as if justice was served. Anderson felt that “someone got killed,” and death is not something worth celebrating, but “that one person can’t be a leader on the next thing.” Ultimately, the death was a “great relief to the world.” On the other hand, the Navy SEAL felt that “there were so many other bad guys worth hunting down,” and “although it was a good piece of closure, at that point the War on Terror had morphed into something much larger.” The SEAL continued by saying, “To me, it was more symbolic than actually a difference-making event,” meaning Bin Laden’s elimination was necessary for the world to experience justice, but there are “plenty of other really really bad terrorist leaders to still go after.”

America has been fighting the War on Terror for nearly 18 years now; there has never been a moment in my life where the US has not had military involvement in the Middle East. Despite the War on Terror being connected to many current policy decisions and impacting the lives of many older Americans, I am puzzled by why there is not a greater focus on theses events in history classes. At Collegiate, Upper School religion and history teacher Brian Justice touches on 9/11 briefly in his world religion class, but “just in the context of radical islam and the idea that Al Qaeda claims to be a religious group, but it is debatable or doubtful they accurately represent the teaching of Islam.”

Upper School history teacher Nate Jackson puts a significant emphasis on the events of 9/11 in his classes,  Honors History: The Middle East, and US History. Every September 11th, Jackson shows his students a thirty-minute video compilation of all the major news coverage from that day. The video depicts what each American witnessed that morning on television and provides the same emotional shock, fear, and confusion Americans had that day. Jackson shows this video because he believes that the “memory of [9/11] fades every year with the incoming class,” and that it is the “responsibility of a US history teacher” to show their students what the nation faced as a result of many accumulating events in US and world history. According to Jackson, “As time passes, students becomes less connected; which is the fundamental problem with history. It takes a lot of maturity for kids to put themselves back into the time period.”

A map of powers in Afghanistan in late October 2001. Image credit: Global Security

The events of 9/11 were rooted in Islamic extremists’ hatred towards Western civilization and United States foreign policy. America’s decision to enter Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf War during the 1990s, “and America’s support for Israel, contributed to the rise of Islamic radicalism in the region,” said Jackson. Now, the United States is still directing military spending towards Afghanistan, as well as participating in military action in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. The rise of ISIS shows that terror is a difficult war to fight, as it is a war with many fronts and radical groups.

Today, there seems to be a greater divide between political parties and various interest groups, especially in American political culture. During the time following 9/11, there was less partisanship in American politics because everyone was experiencing the tragedy together. Regarding America’s more recent political divisions, Jackson wonders “How did we get this way?” My father echoed this, asking, “Where did America lose the patriotism?” Jackson believes that the security of the nation is very important, especially in the wake of 9/11. Now, the debate over security is highly publicized and partisan, though “it should not be, because it is enhancing the safety of Americans,” according to Jackson. This partisanship has divided our country, and to the SEAL, “It is so disappointing to a veteran like me, who has spent decades of my life and years away from my family fighting for this country, to see us so divided today as a nation.”

New York City fire fighters on Wall Street walking through debris after 9/11. Photo credit: Stan Honda.

Jackson and others expressed that some Americans seem to have forgotten the importance of unity and national security. “Security matters,” says Jackson, and getting “to the airport early because of TSA is well worth [the longer lines].” Additionally, “A lot of people made a lot of sacrifices, and the war in the Middle East has affected many families;” According to a NBC News article published in 2017, there have been 2,403 US military casualties in Afghanistan since 2001. My father said, “It’s a shame that it takes something like 9/11 to bring us all together. We don’t have a unified sense of purpose.” Anderson believes, “It happened and could happen again if we don’t take due care. Americans should be supportive to make sure we protect ourselves.”

There are many lessons to be learned from the events on September 11th and the months and years following. Everyone should know what happened in detail and never forget the great loss of life and sacrifice that occured. I asked each person whom I interviewed if they could write a book about 9/11, what lesson would they want to share to my generation, the first to not have first-hand memories of the terrorist attacks. Anderson wants Americans to know that although “there is evil, there is a lot more kindness in the world.” The SEAL wants Americans to “never forget how good we can be as a country… I want your generation to learn that despite tons of differences and opinions on what is right for our country, it is NEVER wrong to respect, protect, and serve your fellow human beings,” and he wishes to impart that “the country and Americans that I fought for will actually fight for each other and treat each other with dignity and respect.”

My father and I now. Photo credit: Maria Long.

Lastly, my father believes “People are motivated by all sorts of things – hatred, fear, greed, fame. But in the aftermath of 9/11, the greatest motivator was love. It decided how we spent our time, who we relied on for support, what we learned was worth fighting for and what filled our hearts with both joy and sorrow. The best lesson for your generation is to find something to love, and then let this love change everything.”