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Your kids love playing angry birds where there is now a life-size theme park at 10.
It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since we were attacked by terrorists on American soil.
All our lives changed on September 11th, 2001.
How did you feel that day?
What do you remember?
Some of us older, some of us younger were affected in different ways.
It's been 10 years since the towers fell, since a hole exploded in the side of the Pentagon,
since 40 people became heroes on Flight 93 by overtaking hijackers.
Before another target could be hit.
Separately, members of the channel 4 news team sat down just with a camera and recorded their thoughts.
Some of them painful, some of them hopeful, but all of them personal.
Tonight, over the next hour, we are doing something a bit different.
We will share their thoughts on the anniversary of September 11th.
In their own words.
You know, the morning of September 11th, I've been working late the night before,
and I was sleeping actually when the attacks happened.
And I got a phone call from my husband saying, turn on the TV.
A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.
And I woke up, you know, bleary-eyed and thinking, what are you talking about?
What do you mean?
And I scrambled to turn on the TV.
I just couldn't believe what I was seeing.
I'm a late sleeper because of the fact that I work at night.
And I had just gotten up.
It was quarter to nine, 10 of nine, few minutes before nine.
And the phone rang.
And it was one of my wife's best friends.
And she's a native New Yorker.
Our sons, our youngest sons, go to high, went to high school together.
And she was calling.
And she told me to turn on the television that there had been a terrible air disaster in New York.
What I remember from that day, I used to work the night shift back then.
So come 830, nine o'clock, I'd still be asleep.
So shortly before nine o'clock, the phone rang.
I didn't pick it up because I wanted to sleep some more.
The phone rang again quickly after that.
I still didn't pick it up.
And then finally on the third ring, I'm like,
something's going on here.
So I got out of bed.
Hello.
And it was a friend of mine who said, turn on the TV.
And I said, what?
And he said, turn on the TV.
And on the way to work, I remember listening to the radio and they interrupted.
And they talked about a small plane going into one of the towers in New York.
It appeared to be an accident of some kind.
At least that's the way it was first reported.
It was a very strange day to say the least.
But when I was working the morning show, we had had a really beautiful morning.
And I just got down doing one of my segments and I went back into the weather office and
I had CNBC on the TV.
And I was doing a lot of active trading back then.
And sure enough, they had started a report about a small plane hitting one of the towers.
I was working overnight and really wasn't aware that all of this stuff had happened
because working overnight you sleep a little later.
So when I woke up, most of what had happened had already taken place.
And it was when I got into the newsroom that everything started to become very real.
I had just finished a radio report that morning when one of the guys I was on the air with
called me and said, hey, turn the TV on.
I think we're under attack.
Well, we had already reported that one plane had hit the World Trade Center.
And we all, just like everybody else in America, thought it was just a terrible mistake.
Now, I remember on September 11th, I was driving to work and I had just passed my
alma mater, Episcopal High School.
I was listening to public radio and they interrupted the broadcast to report that
it looked like a small plane had hit one of the Twin Towers.
And I remember thinking, oh, it must have been an accident.
How could that happen?
And it was just a matter of just a few minutes before I had arrived to work and I walked in.
And I knew something was terribly wrong.
And I remember a girl had walked in, maybe close to 10 o'clock.
And I remember she had come in and the first thing she said was, anybody see the TV?
A plane had actually hit the World Trade Center.
And this was right after John Denver had died in a plane crash.
John F. Kennedy Jr. had died in a plane crash.
So I'm thinking in my head, I remember visualizing it.
A plane hit the World Trade Center.
It must have been a little tiny, you know, crop duster plane.
Probably hit the top, didn't see it.
Maybe it was cloudy, who knows?
I got a phone call that changed everything.
It was another fellow reporter who called me and said, there has been a terrorist attack.
Another tragedy and other teams want to do this.
I would say, okay.
Deal with that when it comes up.
And it's okay to do that.
It changed everything.
It was another fellow reporter who called me and said, there has been a terrorist attack
in New York City.
And at first I thought it was a joke, cuz I'm thinking New York City is a terrorist attack.
No way.
That would never happen here in our country, in New York City.
And I turned on the radio and it was on every single dial.
Every single dial was talking about what happened.
And they said a plane crashed into the Twin Towers.
And in my head, I'm like, okay, so this is a small plane.
This can't be that bad.
And as soon as I got into work, I flipped on the television and I saw just how bad it really was.
And I heard it on the radio that a plane had struck one of the towers.
And I thought, what a horrific mistake.
How does that even happen?
What kind of glitch in technology?
And about the time that I got through that thought process, they announced that the second
plane hit the tower.
And I went out to my living room and I turned on the TV.
And just like every other person who saw those images, you were horrified by what you saw.
I mean, the images were just startling.
What they were talking about.
At first, I thought, we all thought it was a terrible, terrible accident.
And it was quiet, just silent.
And everyone was in my news director's office.
So I walked in to my news director's office and I was peering over kind of the crowd of people.
And they were all watching the three television sets that she had in there.
And that's when I saw the second plane hit the second tower.
So I went on to work, but by the time I got to work, I remember standing at the assignment desk.
There were several of us standing around watching live in New York.
And we actually watched the second plane go into the building.
And it was at that point we said, this is no accident.
We're under attack.
And somehow, I guess because I've been a newsman for a long time, I instinctively knew that
this was extremely unusual.
This must be an attack.
We must be under attack.
And I said, I have to get off the phone.
I have to get dressed and I have to go to work.
You know, when we were kids in school, we read about history.
It was something that was in the past.
It was something that had happened.
I was sitting in a newsroom watching the terrorist attacks unfold.
And it struck me that we live in a much different world from the one we live in.
That we live in a much different world right now because we're seeing this as it happened.
And history had an entirely different perspective for me.
But when the second plane hit, we knew right away that this was much more serious.
And that in fact we were under attack.
And then gradually, you know, as you're watching it, the news starts, you know, all the details get pieced together.
And you're realizing, oh, that was much, much worse.
And I didn't know if it was live TV I was looking at at that moment.
I didn't know if it was taped.
I wasn't quite sure until the announcer on the TV came on and then said, a second plane has hit.
And there was some confusion at that moment.
And then about literally two minutes later, I mean, everything changed.
Everybody was buzzing.
Clearly something was up.
And I'm watching the TV and they're monitoring the two towers.
And seconds later you can see another plane.
And this one was a big plane go right into the other building.
And I think we all knew right then and there, it gives me chills just thinking about it, that, you know, our lives are going to change.
Now, when I got off the phone with my wife's friend, the first thing I remember doing was praying.
Because all I could think of was how many people there had to have been in the World Trade Center.
I stayed riveted to the TV just about just like everybody else did.
And the very first thing I did was call one of my closest friends who at the time was a captain in the Navy.
And I knew he was on vacation here in North Florida.
And I woke him up in his hotel room because I knew he wouldn't answer his cell phone.
And I said to him, hey, I need you to wake up and I need you to turn the TV on.
You know when you hear that clunk in the hotel room when the television comes on?
So he sat up and he went, what?
And I said, turn the television on.
And then you hear that clunk and there was silence.
And he said, I'll call you back.
And it was just so confusing because I had woken up and didn't know what was going on.
But of course I knew that something horrible was going on.
And I hung up the phone with my friend and I called my sister and I just remember not screaming,
but just in kind of a hysterical voice saying, I knew this would happen.
I knew.
And the reason I knew is because for so long, for so many years,
so many experts told us that America was at risk for a terrorist attack.
And so this was just that moment, that moment that experts and other Americans had feared would happen.
We had a terrorist attack on our soil.
It wasn't some horrific mistake that people were attacking
and trying to hurt and kill Americans out of hatred.
And it was something I'd never experienced before.
And I knew that this would be a reference point for my entire life that they would,
that we would go back to because life as we knew it had changed.
I remember some other kids saying Osama bin Laden.
It's got to be Osama bin Laden.
I didn't even know who Osama bin Laden was.
I had never heard of him, but we quickly learned.
As a journalist, as a person, but perhaps more importantly as a dad,
you know, I sat there and I watched in horror.
It takes a lot to get me to keep quiet, but I didn't know what to say.
I didn't know what to do.
I just watched.
And all sorts of things started running through my mind.
And then after the second attack, my cell phone rang.
And it was a very close friend of mine who was not far from the World Trade Centers.
And she called and she told me that the world seemed to be collapsing around her.
And she didn't know what was going to happen.
She didn't know if she was going to make it out alive.
And that made that tragedy that much more real for me.
Inside the borders of the United States, I could not have spent a day
or I could not have spatially been more distant from what happened.
I was living in Portland, Oregon.
I was in a different time zone.
I was on the other side of the United States of America.
But yet at the same time, just being American, being working in newsrooms,
it felt like it was so much a part of what was happening.
We were just all quiet.
You just didn't know what to think or it was just so unreal.
And it felt like maybe an hour, but it was probably more like a minute or two
where we just sort of sat there just quiet.
I remember trying to think, how could this really be happening?
Was this reality?
It just seemed like I actually hadn't woken up and I was in some sort of horrible nightmare.
None of us except those people who were old enough to have been through Pearl Harbor
had experienced anything like this, about being under attack.
It really was very deep because you never really thought that anybody could attack us like that.
As the morning went on, of course, the story got worse.
The plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
Now, I went to college in Washington and started my career there, so I knew the Pentagon.
I had been to the Pentagon.
And to think of all the people that were working there, and now they had been attacked as well.
And then Flight 93, Somerset.
I'm originally from Pittsburgh, so I know Somerset too.
And this all just had such a profound effect on us.
I was born in New York City.
My mother grew up in the Bronx, the oldest of seven.
I had an uncle who was a New York City police lieutenant at the time.
I had relatives who were with the fire department.
One was a battalion chief, the other his son, a lieutenant.
His other children were with the fire department.
And as I'm trying to focus on my work, all I'm thinking about is are they okay?
My dearest friend and roommate in college in Boston worked for Time Magazine in New York City.
And it took what seemed like hours, because you'll remember you couldn't get through to anybody on the phone.
It seemed like hours before we knew that they were okay.
And I remember feeling relieved that they were, but feeling guilty that I was relieved because there were so many others that had lost loved ones.
Again, the images, people diving to their deaths, people running down the streets for their lives.
The dust everywhere, the ash, the office papers floating down.
From that immense tower, the shoes, the women's shoes on the ground as people were struggling.
I guess they were, you know, leaving their shoes behind trying to run as fast as they could.
And then the local connections to our area, Todd Beamer's dad, the man who said,
let's roll on the flight that ended up crashing in Pennsylvania, his father being from our area.
It was just a really hard time for so many people.
We watched the news and for the first time I saw foreigners celebrating in the street because America had been attacked.
And that changed me. It made me more worldly in a way that I don't like.
I'd never experienced hatred towards Americans like that.
And it also made me more of an American to know that we had a cause to fight for.
There was a gasp here on the set that what we had just witnessed called up my wife right away, as I did.
And we had a couple of kids in school, two young girls.
And I told her what was happening and she went over there, got the girls out of school.
In my mind, my first thought is the victims, people who were still trapped, who were gone in an instant,
those who had to jump out the window and all you saw was that plume of smoke coming from the building.
And it just broke your heart. It broke your heart.
I grew up in Maryland outside of D.C. My father was actually a police officer in Washington, D.C.
First thing I did was I called my dad because I heard that the Pentagon had been hit.
Couldn't get through. Cell phone service was busy.
I remember a lot of people, a lot of kids who had just moved down from college, who were living away from home,
couldn't get home or couldn't get through on the phone to talk to their families about it.
A couple of hours later, I did talk to my father, who was really shaken.
In fact, in his job, he was working and he had to cover Laura Bush on a security detail.
He was kind of stuck with the First Lady during this whole day. It was just chaos.
You feel desperate and you feel helpless.
And I thought, you know, from so far away, my little life, you know, felt so insignificant.
All of a sudden you realize how vulnerable, very vulnerable we all are.
We'll be right back with the president on Air Force One right after the terrorist attacks.
What Adam Putnam told me about those moments with the commander in chief. John?
Tonight, Mary, we're looking down south and east of us. That's Maria near San Juan, Puerto Rico.
What is it about fair and fair that makes us different? Whether we represent individuals or groups of thousands, we've got the experienced manpower, financial resources and tenacity needed to take on the largest corporations. In short, we can level the playing field.
Dinner starts right here from custom cut steaks to ready to cook entrees. We know your main course is in the public's meat department.
We also know that on Mom's Night Out, these boys need some help.
Just 15 minutes on the grill, turn them a few times and you're all good. She likes to cook by the book. I only need two of these. Sure, I can break it for you. No problem.
And Gary likes his rib eyes cut about getting thick. While knowing what we serve is important, knowing who we serve matters even more.
Publix, where shopping is a pleasure. I remember how incredibly amazingly beautiful it was that day.
I was in boot camp when I found out I had the news on and they mentioned that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.
On September 11th, I will pray for the safety of the people I love. I will. I will. I will continue to be a volunteer fireman. I will volunteer at our local domestic violence shelter. I will remember by planting a tree here at the Flight 93 Memorial.
What will you do this September 11th?
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The advantages of being a newsman is that newsman, newswomen, we cover the news. So I knew what I was supposed to do that day. I know so many people were just frozen in place. They didn't know what to do other than watch television, of course, because by now CNN and all the networks, CBS, we were CBS affiliate in those days, were fully engaged in covering the story.
And the entire nation, the entire world was riveted to their televisions.
So watching that horror unfold on the TV, I called the station.
What can I do? I'm coming in.
And I got dressed and I went in at noon and said, put me to work. Where do you need me?
It was a Tuesday. It was media day down in Gainesville. And so I ended up driving to Gainesville and listening to the radio, obviously all the way down and what the events of the day were and got to Gainesville and actually had a conversation with Steve Spurrier about what was going on.
And none of us really knew the severity of it at the time. And we had never heard of, I mean, those of us in the news business had heard of Al Qaeda and had heard of Osama bin Laden, but really not really household names in America.
And you started to hear these kinds of things starting to surface as to who might be able to put together this kind of attack on America.
But in television, we all know that when bad things happen, we have to go to work. So I was in Dover, Delaware, Dover Air Force Base, just five minutes away.
And my assignment was to go and see what the base was doing to prepare for this or what was going to happen next, because no one knew who would be attacked next.
And then my news director just sort of started calling off all of our names, sending us out the door. And we had a job to do to cover this tragedy on a local angle.
And none of us really knew really what had happened or why, really.
And so I got dressed and I came to work. I came to Channel 4. And it was the strangest sensation because the network was covering the story.
It was a national, international story. And what were we going to do?
Well, we covered Jacksonville's response, particularly the military bases, their response, their state of readiness being increased.
And we reported it to our viewers.
And I remember reporting outside of N.A.S. Jacksonville right then. At that time, it was just such a confusing time for so many people.
And I went to N.A.S. Jackson. Of course, they had tightened security measures as a result of what happened.
And then that night, I believe I was stationed out at Mayport.
And there just wasn't much to report on that local angle except for heightened security.
But there certainly was a lot to report on the mental state of our community, of the people in Jacksonville and people all across this area.
So I happened to be sent to the airport.
And I remember getting there and in many instances, I was telling people what had happened, who'd never heard.
Because remember, they grounded all of the planes. So here I am at the airport. These people are getting off.
They haven't been told why their plane, which was headed someplace else, was diverted to JIA, to Jacksonville International.
And it was difficult because we really didn't know why what happened happened, at least at that time.
In fact, I remember literally bumping into tennis star Venus Williams. Her plane obviously had been diverted to JIA.
She was on the phone. She had this sort of panicked look on her face.
Everybody was sort of walking in different directions, unfamiliar with the airport.
And I can't remember exactly what I said to her, but it was something to the effect, can you believe?
I mean, do you have anything that you would say to the people of New York?
And I remember she just gave me this look. She could not speak. Really, none of us could.
And I remember I had a number of live broadcasts that day reporting on what was going on at our airport.
And between those live broadcasts, I was calling home.
I do remember also trying to get the story together, you know, piece it together and explain it to our viewers.
So I can remember, you know, getting the phone calls from my news managers and they said, we need you to go live.
You got to figure this out and just tell the story.
And I was so nervous because this is something that I never thought that I would live through.
I never thought that I would see something like this happen in my country, my safe country.
And I just had to talk. I just had to get through it.
And I explained what I saw and I explained what I heard, the panic, the concern, the sadness of the people around me.
And I just told the stories.
The big event, of course, just the thought of how life had changed in such a short period of time.
Even here at Channel 4, you know, everybody we all knew and we had to tell everybody what was going on.
And just to watch that serene scene in New York City, the two towers on fire under perfectly blue skies.
It was looked like such a beautiful day in New York.
It was just such a horrifying result.
I got an entirely different perspective when I got a phone call from one of my kids a little later in the day.
As it happens, we were scheduled to fly, I think it was to see my folks in Philly a couple of weeks later.
And my then nine-year-old asked me, I mean, it's an innocent kid.
You know, he didn't know from history. He doesn't know from real world events or whatever.
He says, Daddy, do I have to be afraid to fly? Am I going to die?
And, you know, what do you say? What do you say to your child to assuage their fear?
What do you say to them to let them know that everything's going to be okay?
And what's happening isn't going to affect them, or at least you hope it doesn't affect them.
I guess that's a dad's role, isn't it? To sit back and comfort your kids, even when you have questions going through your mind.
I thought of my daughter, and I thought, I've got to get a hold of her. I've got to talk to her. I've got to explain what's going on.
She was only nine at the time. And before I went into work, I got a chance to pick her up from school.
And I didn't know if they had told her. And it turns out that they had announced that something had happened, but they couldn't give the details.
They weren't, they were trying to, you know, protect the children and let the parents explain.
Took the kids back home and just kind of kept it on the low key. We didn't want to get my daughters all kind of upset over the thought.
They were at that age where they understood things.
So many people were just so sad, so horrified at what they had seen, at the images they saw.
I know I didn't have children back then, but I know a lot of people tried to shield their children from watching that unfold.
And now thinking about it, thinking about my kids seeing something like that as it was happening, that just had to be so awful for so many parents out there.
And I remember being at work, and I remember doing our job.
Now during the course of the day, neither my wife nor I can remember exactly when. At some point my wife and I talked on the phone.
And we had ascertained that our daughter, who was away in college, that she was safe, and that our oldest son, who had just gone to work in Austin, Texas, that he was fine.
He called his mother. And of course our high school son, our youngest, came home from school early because the Duval County schools let out early.
I just burst into tears. I just wanted to hold her and explain everything that had gone on, but I couldn't explain it.
I mean, I never thought that I'd ever have to explain to my daughter something of that magnitude.
I could tell she didn't quite grasp, you know, what was going on.
Then later she told me, it was the next day, she went to school, and she still hadn't quite sunk in.
And she said, she said, I realized when I saw my teacher burst into tears, really the gravity of it all, and I mean, even at nine.
We decided that the best thing for them and just for us was just to kind of get away from the TV at this point in time.
We'd watch the towers collapse, and it was very, very difficult to watch.
And took everybody, went to the beach, and you know, we were just sitting there on the beach just trying to keep everything low keyed.
And I'm looking up in the sky, and I'm seeing the clouds roll by, and I see nothing but blue sky between the clouds.
And I'm like thinking, this is the weirdest day ever. And I'm looking up, and I don't even see any airplanes.
I mean, if you go to Jack's Beach, you look up in the sky, you will see contrails all the time.
You know, the skies are perfectly blue, and you know, obviously they had stopped all flights of aircraft for a couple of days.
But I won't forget the blue skies and no airplanes, the ocean, just real quiet.
Six years before, when our youngest son was nine, he and I sat across the street at a restaurant having pizza, looking at those twin towers.
And he, of course, had never seen anything like that before in his life, buildings that tall, growing up here in Jacksonville.
He had never seen anything like the World Trade Center.
It's just, you know, you don't think that our children are going to understand it.
And I never thought my little girl would grow up with friends she's lost in the war, and you know, because of this.
And she's had a different childhood than I had, just because of such a reality in all of our lives.
And the fear, I think we all live with a sense of fear that I don't think we ever had before.
But it's amazing.
And it made me think, what kind of world and what kind of legacy am I leaving my children to?
And I think I still worry about that today, because I don't know.
And that question plagues me.
It bothers me.
You know, journalists, me, I sit back and I say, you know what serves me well in life?
The fact that I don't know all the answers, but I know where to find them.
With this issue, I don't even know where to find them.
Coming up on the next Making Moves, some are calling for the Skyway to close forever.
We'll tell you why that plan could permanently damage downtown.
The first day of school saw hundreds of young people riding JTA.
We'll tell you why and how a JTA road project is helping one overlooked area of Jacksonville prosper.
Join Joyce Morgan Danforth and Michael Blalock for these stories and more on the next Making Moves.
Monday at 1230 and again at late night only on Channel 4, The Local Station.
A year later, I had the privilege of going to Ground Zero.
Channel 4 sent me there to cover the one year anniversary observances. Excuse me.
And I flew over Ground Zero in a traffic helicopter.
And remember, six years before, I'm having pizza looking at those buildings.
And now I'm flying over Manhattan, lower Manhattan in a traffic helicopter.
I'm looking down at that hole in the ground.
And all I could think of was the holes that this attack had left in the hearts of so many Americans,
particularly those who lost loved ones that day at the Pentagon Flight 93 and at the World Trade Center.
And to me, that's what that hole in the ground symbolized was the hole in our nation's heart
and in the hearts of people who's lost loved ones.
And I think it was later in the year when I went to Ground Zero and I was there.
And I remember approaching that area, that just vast hole in the ground with a sense of just awe and respect
for all of those Americans who lost their lives.
And I wanted to tread very lightly. It just felt like hallowed ground.
It took several days for me to really absorb what had happened because I was so busy with work.
And I remember a couple of days later sitting and just watching everything and watching the towers come down
and all of the people covered in ash and those poor family members carrying around pictures of their loved ones who still hadn't come home.
I have a feeling that I still can't describe that this was in my gut. It was just gut-wrenching.
And to this day, I can't describe that feeling. And I've never had that feeling since.
I think the thing that strikes me the most 10 years after those 9-11 attacks is that that is the day the world changed.
It changed for all of us. And I realized that we could see that change before our very eyes.
We could see a segment of society with no regard for life, with no regard for anything but promoting a cause
that I guess they believed in at any cost, willing to do whatever at any cost.
That was something that happened in other countries. And it changed our sensibilities.
And it changed how we really viewed how the rest of the world saw us and what they are capable of doing left unfettered.
And the real hatred that there is in some people's hearts for America and for all of us.
And so I just think that that day will be the day that I look back on for the rest of my life
as one of the most important life-changing days in ways that I hate and will always hate
and in ways that I needed to grow up.
September 11th. Have you ever had that feeling where you're connected to something and yet separated so far away?
That mix of feelings is what I remember most about September 11th.
I know my wife and I spent some time trying to process things together and dealing with that changed perspective.
Because what terrorists tried to take away in terms of our security instead ignited for us a passion for our country,
a renewed appreciation for every day spent with family and friends,
and absolutely a commitment to give thanks on a daily basis for everything God has given us.
It's changed all of our lives. And I just talked to a young woman just the other day
who's just two years older than my daughter now and she's 21.
And she's turning 21 on September 11th.
And she told me, you know, she has a greater sense of purpose in her life.
And she thinks it does have something to do with September 11th.
When she was a young girl and this happened and she didn't understand it at first,
but she's realized how it's impacted all of our lives
and how very vulnerable we are, how incredibly delicate and fragile our lives are.
As I look on this 10 years, I still think about the victims, the victims' families,
those children who are now 12 years old, 15 years old, who lost their moms or lost their dads when they were just little.
And as the world moves on year to year that we get further and further away from 2001,
those families, they don't move on because they lost everything.
A lot of older generations say time changed when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
For my generation, for my age group, it was 9-11.
That was everything changed after that and I'll never forget that day.
And our lives will never ever be the same.
And maybe this next generation who's grown up with this will have a better respect for life
and how we treat others and respect others.
One word I can think of, me.
And in the days and weeks that followed, I remember going to church more often,
trying to make sense of what was going on, and I remember that overwhelming feel of being united with everybody in this country
and feeling such a kinship with everybody.
I think it was probably the first time in a very long time that our country had felt that way,
that I don't care what your politics are, I don't care where you're from, I don't care how you look or how you speak.
We are all in this together. We are one.
And unfortunately we've lost some of that, and I hope that it doesn't take another September 11th type occurrence to bring us back together.
And I remember that that night when we went out to dinner during our dinner break,
there was a sense of everything from anger to sadness, and at the same time, no matter where we went,
there was also this overwhelming pride of, we're Americans, you know, we can rebuild from this.
I had friends, we were all seniors in high school, and they turned down athletic scholarships,
they turned down academic scholarships, they turned down deals that parents can only dream of for their children,
and they signed up for the military that day.
I ended up having, I'm sure, that same response that so many young guys had after Pearl Harbor.
I tried to get in the Navy, literally. I spent the next two years trying to get into the Naval Reserve,
met with them, went through security clearances, got all the, jumped through every hoop, and I was a little too old at the time,
and the Admiral who I was talking with said, it's no big deal, Sam, we're going to have that waived,
because I really felt like I could really make a difference there, just like I'm sure so many other guys did the day after Pearl Harbor.
In the end, the Navy said, sorry, Sam, you're too old.
I remember the overwhelming sense of togetherness and friendship with people that you didn't know.
And I can remember feeling so blessed, because that weekend we had a family event planned.
My entire family were meeting at Ocean City, and we were just going to enjoy a weekend together,
and when I got there, I just looked at them thinking, I am so blessed that I am able to touch, see, hear, talk with, love my family,
like so many people were not able to after September 11, 2001.
So on this anniversary, I pray for those people and for healing,
and I just think this is a time when, once again, just like then, we should all come together and all just be so thankful for our blessings,
because that was something I don't think anyone thought would ever happen, and it changed the face of this nation.
And it reminded me of the first time that I saw the Twin Towers.
I was six or seven years old.
We had been up visiting my grandparents, and my grandfather took me on an adventure to the city to see where he worked,
and he worked right down the block from the Twin Towers, and I remember him.
That moment, I remembered vividly him pointing them out to me, and I thought they were the most magnificent buildings I'd ever seen.
Here I was, a young child growing up in Jacksonville.
There were really no tall buildings here, and even now, as we approach this anniversary,
that's the way I want to remember the Twin Towers, and that's the way I choose to remember New York City.
That memory with my grandfather, the city that I choose to remember is the city where all of my loved ones call home,
and that's always the way I'll remember it.
I'll never, ever let any terrorist take that memory away from me.
I think we all, if we go to church, wherever we go, if we pray, whatever we do in our spiritual beings
that we always keep all of those people in mind who we lost September 11th,
and the layers and layers and layers of people who have been touched by what happened, the tragedies of September 11th.
I think we all need to keep them in our minds, our thoughts and our prayers, and I think we always will.
I remember a sense of being American and being proud that knowing our nation wouldn't give up, we wouldn't forget, and that we would rebuild.
And I think that everyone looked inside themselves, everyone looked towards their neighbors that day, and things really changed.
Some of the changes we've made for the positive, we've become a better community,
we've become a better supporter of the ideals that people fought for before us, and we've become better champions of the cause of freedom.
To this day, my closest friends remain among those who defend our freedom.
I don't think we'll ever forget where we were that day.
I have to say this, looking back on it, even then, and even more so now,
I really do believe that wherever there is evil, good comes along quickly.
And it was hard to grasp the good that day, ten years ago, but his time has gone on.
Look at the courage of the police officers and the firefighters in New York City and in Northern Virginia at the Pentagon,
look at the courage of the people in Flight 93 who probably, through their own bravery,
saved the White House or the Capitol building from being attacked because they took on the hijackers.
And how our country pulled together since that day, and how we have fought back.
I'm grateful to be an American. That's all.