September 11: The Day the World Changed

PIONEER NEWSPAPERS • September 11, 2011

September 11The day the world changed

September 11 The Day the World ChangedPage 2 Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011

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September 11 The Day the World Changed Page 3Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011

TheDaytheWorldChanged: Some changes were dramatic; some were subtle. In countless ways, our lives changed after the morn-ing of Sept. 11, 2001. We feel it’s important to mark the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the

U.S. with special coverage to remember, honor and respect — and to step back

for a look at what’s different. We’ve witnessed attacks, reforms, wars, surges, withdrawals, recession and executions — worth some analysis. Pioneer newspapers par-ticipating in this special sec-tion include those located in: Ellensburg, Wash.; Klamath Falls, Ore.; Driggs, Nampa, Pocatello and Rexburg, Idaho; and Logan, Utah. We wish to express our gratitude to all those staff members as well as businesses who sup-ported this tribute.

CaseyOwensremembersthisaboutSept.11,2001:hewashomefromschoolsick,lyinginhismom’sbedandwatchingcartoonsonTV.Hewas7yearsold. Thephonerang,andOwens’momchangedthechanneltoanewsstation.TheTwinTowerswereburninginNewYork,some750milesfromthefamily’sSummerville,S.C.,home.

Owens’momstartedcrying. “Iwasworriedbecausemymomwasworried,”hesaid.“Iwasscared.Shesaidtheremightbeawarcom-ingtotheU.S.Ijustwantedtowatchcartoonsagain.” Adecadelater,OwenssitsinanArmyrecruitingofficeinaneasternSouthCarolinastripmallwithhismother.Whenhegradu-atesfromhighschool,the17-year-oldwillgotobootcampnextJune.Sept.11attacks,hesaid,were

hisinspiration. ThetensofthousandsofyoungmenandwomenlikeOwenswhohaveenlistedinthemilitarythisyeargrewupintheshadowof9/11,oftentooyoungtoremem-bertheworldwellbeforeit.Somesaytheywanttoserveacountrythat’sbeenatwaragainstterrorismsinceearlychildhood;otherssaytheywanttofindcontrolinaworldthat’sseeminglyspunoutofcontrol.

9:21a.m.:All bridges and tunnels into Manhattan closed. 9:26a.m.: Federal Aviation Administration bans takeoff of all civilian aircraft. 9:31a.m.:President George W. Bush announces United States under “appar-ent terrorist attack.” 9:37a.m.: Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon. 9:45a.m.:U.S. Capitol, White House evacuated.

9:59a.m.:South tower of World Trade Center col-lapses. 10:03a.m.: United Flight 93 crashes near Shanks-ville, Pa., after passengers struggle with hijackers. 10:28a.m.:North tower of the World Trade Center collapses. 4p.m.:U.S. officials identify Osama bin Laden as being involved in attacks. 5:25p.m.:The evacu-ated 47-story Seven World Trade Center collapses. 8:30p.m.:Bush addresses the nation, vowing to “find those responsible and bring them to justice.”

■ ■ ■

Sept.13,2001:White House states there is “over-whelming evidence” Osama bin Laden is behind the attacks. Sept.14,2001:President Bush authorized by Congress to use “all neces-sary and appropriate force” against those who aided or committed the Sept. 11 ter-rorist attacks. Oct.4,2001: British Prime Minister Tony Blair announces that three of the 19 hijackers identified as “known associates” of Osama bin Laden.

AP photo

9:59 a.m.: The south tower starts to collapse as smoke billows from both buildings of the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.

Recruits: Growing up in the shadow of 9/11

See RECRUITS, page 4

About this publication

Sept.11,2001 7:59a.m.: American Air-lines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 with 87 passengers, leaves Boston for Los Angeles.

8:14a.m.: United Air-lines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 with 60 passengers, leaves Boston for Los Ange-les.

8:20a.m.: American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 with 59 aboard, leaves Washington’s Dulles Airport for Los Angeles.

8:42a.m.:United Air-lines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 with 40 aboard, leaves New-ark, N.J., for San Francisco.

8:46a.m.:American Flight 11 hits the north tower of the World Trade Center. 9:03a.m.:United Flight 175 hits south tower of the World Trade Center.

Ten years ago today

❛ I was worried because my mom was worried. I was scared. She said there might be a war coming to the U.S. I just wanted to watch cartoons again. ❜

— Casey Owens, recalling the Sept. 11 attacks

TAMARA LUSHAssociated Press

See TIMELINE, page 4


Thefirstindicationofthehorrorstocomewasasinglecamerashotthatsud-denlyappearedontelevisionsetsthrough-outtheworld:askyscraperbathedinthemorningsun,smokepouringfromaraggedholeinitsside.Theimagesgreweven

worse,astheentireworldwitnessedthedeathanddestructionofSept.11,2001.

WhetherinabarinTahitiorofficebuildinginNewYork,televi-sionwasthecentralgatheringplaceforpeopletoexperience9/11.

■ ■ ■

Tom Brokaw wasrelievedtobeinNewYorkSept.11andnotoutoftownonassignmentwhenthebiggeststoryofhiscareerbroke.NBCNews’chiefanchorfoundoutlaterjusthowhugeareliefitwastobe. “Forthoseofusontheair,wewereouttherewithoutanetofanykind,”hesaid.

“Wehadnoideawhatwasgoingtohappennext.Nooneelsedideither.” MostAmericanslearnedwhathap-penedonSept.11andtheensuingdaysthroughthreemen:BrokawofNBCNews,PeterJenningsofABCNewsandDanRatherofCBSNews.

Watching on September 11

TIMELINE, from page 3

See WATCHING, page 6

“Ibelievethatterroristswillhaveplansinthefuture,”saidTimFreeman,20,aMarinerecruitfromBeaufort,S.C.“Butourmilitary’sgoingtobewaitingforit.” Tenyearsago,Freemanwasinfifthgrade.HisdadpulledhimoutofschoolafterthefirstplanehitandFreemanremembersbeingconfusedbecauseallthegrown-upswerecryingandstone-faced. MilitaryrecruitmentdidnotsurgeintheyearsafterSept.11;theArmymetitsrecruitmentgoalsin2001and2002,butby2005,hadfallenshortofits80,000-persongoal. Yettherewerepeoplewhoenlist-edbecausetheywereangryattheterrorists. Andtheweakeconomyplayedarole.Branchesofthemilitarynowreportthattheyaremeeting—orevenexceeding—theirrecruitmentgoalsandareattractingbetterqualifiedrecruits,largelybecauseofthelackofjobsforyoungpeople.Militaryserviceensuresapaycheckandbenefits.

GI Bill Anotherperk:thepost-9/11GIBill,whichpaysforfulltuitionandfeesforallpublicuniversitiesandcollegesandamonthlyhousingallowanceforthosewhohaveatleast90daysofservicesinceSept.11,2001. AngeloHaygood,thedeputychiefofrecruitingoperationsfortheAirForce,saidthatallrecruitsareaskedtheirtopthreereasonsforjoiningtheservice.

Insevenoutofthepast10years,recruitshavecited“patriotism”asareasonforjoining,Haygoodsaid.Buthe’sreluctanttosaythatSept.11wasthesolemotivatorforpeopletoenlistintheAirForce. “Forthosewhowereinterestedinjoining,Sept.11gavethemaconfir-mationthattheirdecisionwasthe

rightone,”hesaid.A long process

MatthewLocklair,a22-year-oldArmyofficercandidaterecruitfromSouthCarolina,saidittookyearstoprocesstheeffectthat9/11hadonhiscountry,yearsbeforehethoughtaboutenlisting. Whenhisseventh-gradescienceteacherannouncedtotheclassthat“there’sbeenanattackonAmerica,”Locklairremembered,“IthoughtshemeanttherewasanattackonSummerville’stownhall.Icouldn’treallycomprehendthelossuntilyearslater.” LocklairneverthoughtaboutjoiningthemilitaryuntilhewenttoschoolinEgypt,atTheAmeri-canUniversityinCairo.There,helearnedaboutdefensepolicyand

Sept.11,andwasinterestedenoughtoenlist. TheattackthathappenedonU.S.soil10yearsago,hesaid,isevenhardertostomachnowthathe’sanadult. “NowIseethefootageofthetowerscrumblingandIcan’tevenstandtowatchit,”hesaid.“It’sjust

asomberthingintheconsciousnessofmymind.”

WaitingStuartGaskins,whohasbeenaMarineforayearandisstationedatParrisIsland,S.C.,waseagertocelebratehis15thbirthdayonSept.11,2001.Instead,hewatchedtheattacksonTVinhissecondperiodworldhis-toryclassinBowie,Md.,andwenthomesoonafter.Gaskins’fatherworkedatthePentagonanditwashoursbeforeGas-kinslearnedthathisfatherwasalive.

Asayoungteen,Gaskinssaidhewas“kindofapacifist.”Hisfather,whohadservedinthemilitary,oftentraveledaroundtheworldforconflicts. “9/11changedmymindset,”Gas-kinssaid.“Itchangedsomethinginsideofme.Itmademewanttofightformycountry.Weallbecamevulnerable.Itbecamereal.”

❛9/11 changed my mindset. It changed something inside of

me. It made me want to fight for my country. We all became

vulnerable. It became real. ❜

AP photo

Inspired: Casey Owens, 17, an Army recruit from Summerville, S.C., was 7 years old when the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks happened. He said the event was one of the things that inspired him to join the military.

RECRUIT, from page 3 Oct. 5, 2001: In a terror-ist attack unrelated to 9/11, letters containing anthrax are received by news organiza-tions and Senate members. Eleven people infected, five die.

Oct. 7, 2001: U.S. begins bombing strike against Taliban military instal-lations in Afghanistan. Dec. 17, 2001: Northern Alliance defeats Taliban forces in the battle of Tora Bora, defeating the Taliban resistance and effectively ending the Afghan war.

Dec. 22, 2001: Rich-ard Reid, a British citizen, arrested for attempting to use explosives to blow up a Miami-bound jet. Reid pleads guilty to all charges and declares himself a follower of Osama bin Laden.

March 19, 2002: CIA Director George Tenet claims there are links between Iraq and al Qaida. March 18, 2002: Presi-dent Bush gives Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq, threatening military action. March 20, 2002: Presi-dent Bush orders an attack against targets in Iraq. Troops from the U.S., Britain, Austra-lia and Poland invade Iraq. April 19, 2002: Bagh-dad falls to U.S. forces. Dec. 13, 2003: Former Iraqi president Saddam Hus-sein captured near Tikrit. Oct. 29, 2004: Osama bin Laden takes responsibil-ity for Sept. 11 attacks in a videotaped message. Dec. 30, 2006: Saddam Hussein executed. May 2, 2011: Osama bin Laden killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan.


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WE REMEMBER

-


OntherainynightofSept.10,2001,Brokawattendedareceptionforablindmountainclimber.Later,theevent’sorga-nizertoldhimthatithadbeenrescheduledbecauseBrokawwasunabletomaketheoriginaldate.

ThatwastohavebeenTuesdaymorn-ing,Sept.11—attheWindowsontheWorldrestaurantontopoftheWorldTradeCenter.

■ ■ ■

Nicole Rittenmeyer remembersscream-ingatBrokawonSept.11. Nothimpersonally.Sevenmonthspreg-nantandwithatoddlerunderfoot,shewaswatchingthecoverageinChicagoandsawthe

firsttowercrumblingintoacloudofdustandatangledmassofsteelandconcrete.Brokawdidn’tseeitasquickly,andperhapsRitten-meyerfiguredyellingattheTVsetmightgethisattention.


❛ You can find DNA from the Civil War, World War I and World War II.But you can’t find DNA from first responders or civilians? ❜

— Russell Mercer, whose stepson, a firefighter, was killed at the World Trade Center. His remains were never found.

CRISTIAN SALAZARAssociated Press

NEW YORK — His family has his spare firefighter uniform, but not the one he

wore on 9/11 — or any other trace of him.Killed at the World Trade Center, 32-

year-old Scott Kopytko’s remains were never recovered — a painful legacy of grief for families looking for answers, closure or final confirmation that their loved one was actually a 9/11 victim.

“Very painful and very hurt” is how Rus-sell Mercer, Kopytko’s stepfather, describes it. “And mistrusting of everybody.”

Numbers tell the story in the decade of search and recovery of the remains of Sept. 11 victims — one of the largest forensic investigations ever, marked by a Supreme Court appeal of families who wanted a more thorough search, and discoveries years after the attacks of even more remains in manholes and on rooftops around ground zero.

■ Tens of millions have been spent, including on the painstaking extraction of DNA from tiny bone fragments, using tech-nology refined from a decade ago.

■ Of 21,000 remains that have been recovered, nearly 9,000 are unidentified, because of the degraded condition they were found in. More than 1,100 victims have no identifiable remains.

■ And the pace of the process is telling

— in five years, only 25 new identifications.“I can’t give a time frame of when an

identification is going to be made, if at all,” said Mark Desire, who heads the World Trade Center identification unit for the city medical examiner’s office. “But we are working nonstop.”

Desire, assistant director of forensic biol-ogy for the medical examiner’s office, says the office won’t give up.

“The dedication of this team ... is as strong as it was 10 years ago,” he said in a recent interview.

But the extended search baffles family members like Mercer.

“You can find DNA from the Civil War, World War I and World War II,” he said. “But you can’t find DNA from first respond-ers or civilians?”

Identifying remains: ‘We are working nonstop’

AP photo by Mary Altaffer

Never forget: This Aug. 10, 2011, photo shows posters on a wall of the garden behind a tent which houses a chapel and storage of the remains of victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center near Chief Medical Examiner Office Forensic Biology Lab in New York.

Despite DNA technology, all the missing have not yet been found


❛ There are certain pieces of footage that make the hair on my arms stand up or bring tears every time and probably always will. ❜ — Nicole Rittenhmeyer, writer/producer

Continued from page 4


She’sseenthatcollapsecountlesstimessince.Startingwiththe“Inside9/11”documentaryshemadeforNationalGeo-graphicin2005,thefilmmakerestimatesshehasspentfiveyearsonprojectsabouttheterroristattacks.

“There’saprocessthatyougothroughthatautomaticallyputsupakindofbarrier,becauseyou’reworkingonit,”saidRittenmey-er.“Therearecertainpiecesoffootagethatmakethehaironmyarmsstanduporbringtearseverytimeandprobablyalwayswill.”

■ ■ ■

Dan Rather hadlittletimetothinkabout

itwhenDavidLettermanaskedhimtobepartofthefirst“LateShow”sincetheattacks.

Thenightturnedouttobeoneofthememorabletelevisionmomentsoftheweeksaftertheattacks.Theideaofresuminglifehadbecomeadelicateissueinitself,with

eventssuchastheresumptionofMajorLeaguebaseballandabenefitconcertatMadisonSquareGardenimportantmilestonesinthatjourney.

ThetonewasparticularlyimportantforaNewYork-basedcomedyshowandLettermannaileditwiththerawangerofhisopeningmonologue.

10 years, 21,000 bone fragments, no closure for victims’ families

The struggle to identify the 9/11 dead began almost immediately after the attacks in New York City, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pa., where one of the hijacked planes crashed in the woods and plains before reaching its intended target.

Forensic teams at the three sites were faced with challenges in identifying vic-tims and the hijackers — some of whose remains are now in the custody of the FBI.

In Pennsylvania, the heat caused by the high-speed crash into a field caused 92 percent of the human remains to vaporize, leaving very little to work with, said Wallace Miller, the county coroner who helped to identify the victims. DNA was used to make matches to the 40 vic-tims, plus four sets of remains from the terrorists. Remains are still embedded in the field where the flight went down.

All but five of the 184 victims at the Pentagon were identified using DNA.

But nowhere was the forensic detective work as demanding and daunting than at the 16-acre World Trade Center site.

Few full bodies were recovered at all. Some remains were so badly burned or contaminated that DNA could not be analyzed.

By April 2005, the city’s chief medical examiner, Charles Hirsch, told families his office would be suspending identifica-tion efforts because it had “exhausted the limits of current DNA technology.”

And the mystery of who died in the trade center hasn’t yet been solved by science.

Twenty-seven profiles DNA generated so far don’t match any of the approxi-mately 17,000 genetic reference materi-als that were collected. Scientists aren’t sure who they are.

“It’s an open investigation,” Desire said. “There may be some victims where there are no bone fragments. And they are never going to be identified.”

— Cristian Salazar

Five scientists work seven days a week trying to make new identifications at a lab in an ultra-mod-ern building on the east side of Manhattan. About 400 bone fragments are looked at and analyzed every month.

DNA analysis is done by comparing the remains’ genetic profile to DNA found from victims’ posses-sions, like toothbrushes; from relatives; or from previously identified remains.

The fragments are examined, cleaned, and pul-verized into powder to extract tell-tale genetic traces — a process that can take up to a week.

AP photo

Down to DNA: Tatyana Gryazeva, a criminalist at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, extracts DNA at a training lab of the OCME Forensic Biol-ogy Lab.

iDeNtity SeeKeRS

Recovered: (Above) A damaged photographer’s proof sheet was found by a recovery worker a few blocks away from ground zero.

Lost history

See LOST, page 18

Mystery surrounds the loss of records and art on Sept. 11

NEW YORK (AP) — Letters written by Helen Keller. Forty-thousand photographic negatives of John F. Kennedy taken by the president’s personal cameraman. Sculptures by Alexander Calder and Auguste Rodin. The 1921 agreement that created the agency that built the World Trade Center. Besides ending nearly 3,000 lives, destroying planes and reduc-ing buildings to tons of rubble and ash, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks destroyed tens of thousands of records, irreplaceable historical documents and art. In some cases, the inventories were destroyed along with the records. And the loss of human life at the time overshadowed the search for lost paper. A decade later, agencies and archivists say they’re still not completely sure what they lost or found, leaving them without much of a guide to piece together missing history.


AP photo




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In Remembranceof the heros of 9/11 10 Years ago

And those heros continuing to serve

supported By:dr. hammond ofWasatch eye specialists

120 W. cache valley Boulevard #100Logan, ut435-787-7200

DEVIN FELIXHerald Journal

For Drew and Keiko Tillitt, Sept. 11, 2001, was a mix of dismay and joy.

Buildings fell. People died. The president vowed revenge.

And Drew and Keiko held their healthy baby girl, freshly born into the world that morn-ing.

Naya Tillitt turns 10 today, and the daily realities of her life could hardly be further removed from the horrors that happened a couple hours before her birth.

She’s a happy, active fourth-grader at Nibley Ele-mentary who plays the piano and excels at sports. She lives with her older brother and her parents in a well-kept subur-ban house in a quiet mountain valley. As baffling as the attacks were for those watch-ing them, they’re an abstract historical curiosity for some-one who had just taken her first breaths.

The date of her birth will always link Naya to that day, and for the Tillitts, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“Sept. 11 is always going to be a tragic day, but for our family it’s also a celebration,” Drew said.

The first Drew and Keiko knew of the Sept. 11 terror-ist attacks was what they saw on the hospital waiting room TV when they showed up for a Caesarean section. It was morning, and as they waited, they watched the plane hit the

IMPACT: CACHE VALLEY

Born on 9/11/01 Nibley family takes ominous birthday in stride

Since Then

A survey of Cache Valley residents

Has America gotten over the shock of 9/11?

Yes No Notentirely

58%

28%14%

Is the U.S. safer since 9/11?

Yes No

44%56%

How would you rate the historic impact of 9/11 compared to the Kennedy assassination?

More Less Same

80%

5% 15%

Should airport screeners profile passengers?

Yes No

67%

33%About the survey

In August, The Herald Journal conducted an online poll of readers at hjnews.com. The poll attracted 100 respondents. Although non-scientific, the results provide an interesting look at local attitudes and impressions 10 years after the 9/11 attacks.

September 11 The Day the World Changed Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011 Page 9

Jennifer Meyers/Herald Journal

Naya Tillitt of Nibley speaks with a reporter and family members about being born on Sept. 11, 2001.

second World Trade Tower.In addition to the feelings

of horror that were wide-spread that day, the couple had another concern: Would the doctor be focused on the pro-cedure? They asked whether he had loved ones in New York and whether he’d be able to focus on his task. The doc-tor reassured them, and soon they were holding their new daughter.

Her arrival brought hope to her family and their loved ones at a crucial time.

“A lot of people said, ‘At least something good hap-pened today,’” Keiko said.

As it has for most everyone else, life for the Tillitts has gone on in the 10 years since the attacks. Naya learns about them in school every year, and it just so happens that the les-son usually falls on her birth-day. Keiko says people stop and look up in doctors’ offices when she tells them Naya’s date of birth, but neither of them mind. It was a historic day, but it was also Naya’s birthday.

“She’s probably the best gift that could have been given,” Drew said. “A lot of people lost someone that day, but for us it was the opposite.”

A lot of people lost someone that day, but for us it was the opposite. — Drew Tillitt, on birth of daughter Naya

‘ ‘

KATE DUHADWAYHerald Journal

In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, ter-rorist attacks, local

religious and civic leaders in Cache Val-ley, like many places around the country, came together to fos-ter a greater degree of tolerance and respect in the community in hopes of stopping the cycle of violence and misunderstanding.

But where many of those interfaith groups in other areas have since dissolved, the Cache Community

Connections group is still going strong, hold-ing regular interfaith events at the Logan tab-ernacle and providing a forum for open com-munication between civic and religious groups in the valley.

Those involved in its inception say it was kept alive by a strong desire to retain the unity and love that was born out of tragedy 10 years ago.

“Out of the ashes of 9/11 came something really wonderful for Cache Valley,” said former Logan Mayor Doug Thompson, who, along with leaders of many of the commu-



Since Then

Do you fear you could become a victim of a terrorist attack?

Yes No

16%

84%

Do you think the federal govern-ment has gone too far with airport se-curity measures?

Yes No

52%48%

Did the death of Osama bin Laden...

Make you cheer

Ease your mind

Increase your anxiety about terrorism

42%

32%

26%

Has your view of Muslims changed since 9/11?

Forbetter

Forworse

Notat all

12%

42% 46%

Herald Journal file photo

An interfaith choir performs at a Cache Community Connections event at the Logan tabernacle in 2003.

Eli Lucero/Herald Journal

Sydney Peterson, left, Doug Thompson and Paul Heins talk about experiences they have had with the Community Connections group.

From strife, a connection is born

nity’s varied religions, played a major role in organizing the group. “It’s just almost like 9/11 was the catalyst to bring together a group of people of eminently good will, who really wanted to show love for one another. And that is a lasting heri-tage, a lasting legacy.”

Thompson said the group developed out of a concern for the Muslim students at Utah State University at the time, and the need for community support in the midst of shock and tragedy. In the aftermath of the

attacks, Thompson had seen news reports of Muslims, and even a Sikh, being attacked in other places around the country.

“(After the 9/11 attacks), there are two thoughts that came to me,” Thompson said. “The first was we need to have some-place where, some way for the citizens of Logan to get together and mourn together, because it was such a horrendous event. And the second thought was, we had dozens, probably even in the hundreds, of Muslim

See CONNECT, page 11

It’s just almost like 9/11 was the catalyst to bring together a group of people of eminently good will, who really wanted to show love for one another.

— Doug Thompson, Cache Community Connections

‘

‘

CONNECT, from page 10

students at Utah State. And I was worried about them. About their safety and what kind of things might happen to them.”

“But nothing happened,” Thompson continued. “In fact, there was an outpouring of love and concern for the Muslims. (I’m) pretty proud of Logan, because you know, other commu-nities were having problems. But the opposite feeling existed here.”

First gatheringThe place where Cache Valley

residents could come together and mourn as a community became the 9/11 memorial service held in the Ellen Eccles Theatre three days after the twin towers fell. Prayers and songs were offered, and lead-ers from many of the valley’s reli-gious communities spoke.

The interfaith memorial service required a degree of cooperation among Cache Valley’s diverse religious communities that had not yet been attempted, Thomp-son said. But fortunately, some of the religious leaders in the valley had already been working toward the idea of an interfaith organiza-tion aimed at increasing mutual tolerance and respect. After the interfaith memorial service was held, nobody wanted to let the newfound feeling of cooperation and love die.

“It was the catalyst; it wasn’t the sole reason why there’s such a good feeling among the denomina-tions now,” Thompson said of the effects of 9/11 on Cache Valley. “(A catalyst) is something that enters into the reaction, and later on can be pulled out of the reac-tion but the reaction still contin-ues. And that’s what happened, it was something that started it that wasn’t necessary for its continua-tion.”

Ten years later, Cache Valley’s current religious and civic lead-ers still meet on a monthly basis to uphold Cache Community Connections’ mission: “To be a catalyst for action to bring about



Since Then

Do you believe any of the prevailing 9/11 conspiracy theories?

Yes No

24%

76%

Do Americans share any blame for the events of 9/11?

Yes No

45%55%

Do you think the U.S. should dis-tance itself from Pakistan because of its apparent sympathies to-ward terrorists?

Yes No

71%

29%

Does the “Arab Spring” bode well for the fight against terrorism?

Yes No

21%

79%

Spe

cial

eve

nt

Cache Community Connections will be holding “a special evening of music and the spoken word” to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The evening is free and will feature the American Festi-val Chorus directed by Craig Jessop, and speakers Ross Peterson and Doug Thompson. The event is free, with no tickets required, and will be held at the Kent Concert Hall beginning at 7 o’clock tonight.

Evening of music, spoken word


Zak Young of the Episcopal Church delivers his Thanksgiving message as part of the 2010 Cache Community Connections Interfaith Thanksgiving Service at the LDS tabernacle in Logan.

greater understanding, coop-eration, and interaction among and between Cache Valley’s various diverse communities.”

Ongoing programsNonprofit organizations can

use Cache Community Con-nections as a vehicle to spread the word about services offered or a communal need. Those involved in the group have spearheaded projects like outfitting the Cache County Jail with two fully functional

religious spaces appropriate for services for almost any denomination, and frequent concerts and events at the Logan tabernacle.

Dean Quayle, a member of the Utah North public affairs council for the LDS Church and actively involved in CCC since its beginning, said the interfaith group typically sponsors nearly 90 interfaith programs at the Logan

See CONNECT, page 23



Since Then

What will it take to end the terrorist threat?

Total defeat of extremist groups

A negotiatedsettlement

Changed percep-tions about U.S. intentions in the Middle East

There is no solution

14%

2%

20%

64%

Was the invasion of Afghanistan a proper response to 9/11?

Yes No

61%

39%

Will terrorists ever succeed again like they did on 9/11?

Yes No

25%

75%

They made the ultimate sacrifice

Norberto Mendez-Hernandez was known for his warm smile, his love for Ultimate Fighting Challenge and a passion for the Marine Corps.

The death of the Southern California native, who spent much of his youth in Logan, sent a shock wave through the Cache Valley community and prompted a first-of-its-kind military memorial service.

Scores of residents gath-ered at the Historic Cache County Courthouse last month, where the Marine

See MENDEZ, page 13

Michael J. AllredMarine Lance Corporal

Norberto MendezMarine Lance Corporal

Micheal B. AllemanArmy Corporal

Remembering valley soldiers killed in post-9/11 combatMATTHEW K. JENSENHerald Journal

Residents of Cache Valley have served in every branch of the military since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Most have come back to meet their smiling children and spouses at the airport or in drafty hangars at the Air National Guard base in Salt Lake City. Some have been welcomed home with police escorts and met with friendly neighbors holding banners and welcome-home signs.

But others have returned in caskets; their names are inscribed in stone monuments and metal plaques.

Here are the stories of three Cache Val-ley men who died while serving in the armed forces since the beginning of U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.

In addition to these three men, there are many other soldiers, sailors and Marines with connections to Cache Valley who have lost their lives since then.

Marine Lance Cpl. Michael J. Allred was killed in September 2004 in an area northwest of Fallujah, Iraq, after a car bomber ran a vehicle into his military convoy.

Allred was part of the initial Baghdad invasion of 2003 and was scheduled to return home just one month after he and seven other Marines were killed.

The 22-year-old grew up in Hyde Park and graduated from Sky View High School. He joined the Marines prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.

See ALLRED, page 13

Boot camp seemed like an odd place for a 30-year-old school teacher, father and husband.

But looking back, the wife of Army Cpl. Micheal B. Alleman says there was no better place her husband could have been.

Alleman died in Iraq in February 2009 after insur-gents sprung from a spider hole in the floor of a bunker Alleman and his team were combing in an area of Balad.

News about the death of the Nibley elementary school teacher struck Cache

See ALLEMAN, page 13



from page 12

Corps League honored the 22-year-old, his wife, parents and two young chil-dren.

Lance Cpl. Mendez-Hernandez, 22, died July 10 of this year during com-bat operations in Helmand province of Afghanistan, where he was working as an infantryman.

His personal service awards include the Purple Heart, Combat Action Rib-bon, Select Marine Corps Reserve Medal, Armed Forces Reserve Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Sea Service Deployment Ribbon and the NATO-ISAF Medal.

Mendez leaves behind his wife, 2-year-old son, Anthony, and 9-month-old daughter, Audrey.

When asked to share her feelings about the death of her husband, Lorena Mendez, holding back tears, said it was too soon to talk.

His close friend, Carlos Rosales, describes Mendez as one of the most determined people he’s ever met.

“He’s very brave,” said Rosales. “As soon as he sets his mind on doing some-thing, he’s gonna do it.”

At a vigil outside Mendez’s parents’ house in the days following his death, friends, family and classmates gathered to honor the fallen soldier.

“He was pretty much a brother to me,” cousin Jesus Mendez said. “We were together ever since we were kids.”

Mendez said his cousin loved martial arts and would frequently ask him to volunteer as his test body, a comment that got a smile from the somber crowd gathered outside.

Family members said Mendez was a selfless and courageous man who had a lifelong dream of becoming a Marine.

from page 12

“It was something he wanted to do for a long time, and when he gradu-ated, that’s the path he chose,” said his mother, Zell. “He loved the military, he loved the Marines and was proud to serve his country.”

Today, his parents say they’re at

peace with the loss of their son and keep his legacy alive with a scholarship dedicated to him.

“Over the years, you have to come to terms with what happened,” said his father, Brett. “We miss Michael a lot, and there’s times when we look at pictures and wish he were here, but we really feel like we’ve reached a point where we feel at peace with what’s hap-pened.”

The Allreds keep in touch with one of

Michael’s fellow Marines from Portland, Ore. The man recently told the couple he felt their son’s sacrifice was an hon-orable one and that Iraq is a better place because of Allred’s willingness to serve.

“This Marine was in Fallujah when the fighting was at its worse,” Brett Allred said. “But he went back a couple years later and there was a complete change in the city and the people. He came home and told us that he felt Michael’s life was worth it. If that’s how it is then yes, we can say in the end it was worth it.”

Allred says he’ll remember his son as a person with a soft heart who didn’t want war but joined the military because it was the right thing for him to do.

“He joined the Marines because he loved the uniform and felt he would have some great experiences,” he said. “When he first went in, nobody thought we’d be a country at war in a few months. It turned out that way; he wasn’t too happy about it. None of them were.”

Since its creation, the Lance Cpl. Michael J. Allred Scholarship Founda-tion has donated more than $30,000 to Utah State University students in the last five years.

The Cache County Veterans of For-eign War Post 12076 has also been named after Allred.

from page 12

Valley hard and left the man’s wife, Amy, and the couple’s two sons to navi-gate life on their own.

Two-and-a-half years later, healing has only begun for the small family. Alleman says time has only changed the way her husband’s death makes her feel but has not diminished the hurt.

“The pain is still there, but you learn how to coexist with it,” she said. “You find a way to let it be there, but you don’t let it overtake you.”

Having recently moved from Ameri-can Fork to Hyrum, Alleman and her sons are closer now to where their sol-dier husband and father is buried in the Hyrum Veterans Memorial Park.

See ALLEMAN, page 23

A flame burns atop the war memorial at the Historic Cache County Courthouse in Logan. Below are the names of the val-ley’s three most recent war casualties as they appear on the memorial.

Norberto Mendez

Michael Allred

Micheal Alleman



Since Then

What memories do you have of 9/11?

“It was my first year teaching ... I walked into that classroom that day to scared little children and wondered what to say to comfort them. They taught me more that day than I ever taught them.”

“We were visiting my father in the hospital when we passed a televi-sion and saw the first tower burning. My father was a World War II vet-eran. He passed away without ever seeing anything that took place. I wonder what he would have thought.”

“I was pregnant and worried about what kind of world my child would have to grow up in.”

“I went to class on campus and it was silent. There were so many people walking around, but it was silent.”

“It took days for it to really sink in, and during that time, everyone was so nice to each other. People were holding open doors and helping each other out.”

Cache elementary teachers tread softly on 9/11 history; in high school it’s a different challenge

SATENIK SARGSYANHerald Journal

One will rarely find students in K-12 schools who remember 9/11. The event that was dis-cussed in every social and pro-fessional setting 10 years ago is now history even to high school children, who were born a few years before 9/11 but are too young to have heard about it at the time of the event.

And since almost no history book will have a mention of 9/11 up until high school, there is an entire generation of young

Americans that relies on parents and educators to learn about one of the most tragic events that shaped, and even shifted, an entire nation’s mentality.

In Cache Valley, most ele-mentary schools either don’t discuss 9/11 at all to prevent children from sensitive and, at times, psychologically trau-matizing historical material, or they just briefly scratch the sur-face of the event in fifth grade.

A few children’s books on 9/11 make it easier for the elementary school teachers to present the material to the

young audience. AuriAnn Squire, a fifth-grade

teacher at Adams Elementary School, chose “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers” to assist her in the classroom.

“I lay out the basic details to them, and we talk about the positive things that came out of 9/11,” Squire said. “We talk about how now it’s a lot safer to travel in the airports; how our country came together and all the heroes that protect America.”

See SUBJECT, page 15

Jennifer Meyers/Herald Journal

Mike Rigby lectures recently in his American government class at Sky View High School. In his AP classes, Rigby teaches high school seniors about the modern-day political ramifications of 9/11.

My big goal is that I want kids to walk away and have a basic understanding of what happened. I don’t want to terrify them, like some images, I think, could. It scared me as an adult.

— Tracy Hymas, Mount Logan Middle School eighth-grade teacher

Delicate Subject

‘ ‘



1. 9/11. It’s when some people got on the air-plane and crashed into the twin towers. 2. My mom and dad told me a year ago. 3. They didn’t tell me what that is.

1. I don’t know. I wasn’t born yet. 3. My teacher hasn’t told us about it.

1. I know that some planes from a foreign country, they just went and hit the twin towers. Well they were dif-ferent ones that they were assigned to, like the Pentagon, White House and the twin towers. They hit the Penta-gon ... and they almost got to the White House. I think they were from Baghdad. 2. My parents and my fifth-grade teacher mostly. 3. I think it’s like when people from Baghdad and Afghanistan ... don’t like us because they think that we don’t like them. And so they are thinking, ‘Oh, they’ve done all this bad stuff to their country, so why don’t we go to their country and do bad stuff to them?’ It’s like torture, but it’s like hundreds of people at a time. They bring ter-ror to the people.

1. I think it was when men didn’t like people here, came in and crashed into twin towers.

3. It’s how people from other countries are jealous and think they should get freedoms like us. They wanted to come and get it, but they didn’t.

SUBJECT, from page 14

The book is about a tight-rope walker who, allegedly, walked between the two towers many years ago. In the end, the author tells students the towers don’t exist any more, thus generating a discus-sion about the event.

In Squire’s experience, sometimes the discussion gives birth to questions that may be “too deep or too personal” for a classroom setting, in which case she encourages the students to talk to their parents.

Other times, the creative 10-year-old minds make associations on their own.

“One of the girls once said, ‘Oh, that’s how they came up with (the emergency number) 9-1-1,” Squire said.

And even when they transition to mid-dle school — where the history course only extends to the 1800s — teachers are still faced with the same question: Are the students too young to learn about the event?

Tracy Hymas, eighth-grade Advanced Placement History teacher at Mount Logan Middle School, spends her 9/11 class discussing articles about events that happened that day.

And while she uses images to “pass on the feeling of a tragedy” evident that day, Hymas is always “extremely careful” of what she can show.

“My big goal is that I want kids to walk

away and have a basic understanding of what happened. I don’t want to terrify them, like some images, I think, could. It scared me as an adult. But I do want them to understand why 9/11 has become this sacred thing in our country,” Hymas said.

One of the challenges Hymas faces when teaching about 9/11 is similar to

that of any other historical event: It is an abstract concept to the children.

“Politics and war are abstract concepts for them. For the majority of them, it’s hard to process because they haven’t experienced it, so visualizing the event or even trying to understand why some-one would do something like (9/11) is hard for them,” Hymas said. “My role is to try to put that abstract concept to something more concrete, to give them

more basic facts because they are not ready for the details.”

But sometimes even a basic discussion of the event may cause turmoil among these almost-teens.

“I have to be really, really careful because at that age they can say things that they don’t mean. But most of the time, students are very respectful,” Hymas said.

By the time high school comes, stu-dents have a “limited background” on the basic details of 9/11, said Mike Rigby, an Advanced Placement American History teacher at Sky View High School.

And while some students can lead an “organic discussion” on the event, in Rigby’s experience most have not been taught the political ramifications of 9/11.

It is one of Rigby’s concerns that most high school students learn about 9/11 from the “Hollywood culture.”

“Most kids don’t know who was responsible for 9/11,” Rigby said. “They don’t know where al-Qaida started or what al-Qaida is. I put a lot of responsi-bility on the kids: They should read. Most kids don’t take the time to read.”

In his AP classes, Rigby teaches high school seniors about the modern-day political ramifications of 9/11, including religious extremism, the American Middle East Policy and the U.S. involvement in the region — hoping to produce a well-informed generation of young Americans.

Three questions: Quizzing valley kids about 9/11

Utah author Susan Kertesz’s children’s book, “Harvey,” is used by some grade schools to teach 9/11 history.

Melodee Zappitello, 7th grade

1.) Do you know what happened on Sept. 11, 2001? 2.) How did you learn about 9/11? 3.) What do you know about terrorism?

Nick Nielson, 4th grade Sharron Wallace, 7th grade Caleb Alvizures, 4th grade

KEVIN OPSAHLHerald Journal

Don and Iris Anderson love Logan.

The couple, though not Utah State University alumni, have been traveling to Cache Valley every summer for the past eight years for the USU-sponsored Summer Citizens program.

The program allows them to take in all Cache Valley has to offer — from operas to restaurants — and to learn new things with the help of USU professors.

“When you’re older it keeps your mind alert,” Anderson said of the pro-gram. “And it’s fun to be able to take classes and not have to take tests!”

To keep her mind sharp this year, Anderson is enrolled in several classes, includ-ing Spanish, Mormon his-tory and a national security policy course taught by Larry Booth.

Anderson decided to take the course — taught by the 30-year CIA veteran now retired — after an eerie coin-cidence 10 years ago that left her on a flight with three soon-to-be-notorious terror-ists.

Little did they know at the time, the Andersons’ flight from Los Angeles Inter-national Airport to Boston Logan International Airport on Sept. 8, 2001, was con-sidered a sort of “dry run” for the men who would slam airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field three days later, taking almost 3,000 American lives.

Though coming back to USU is a joyous time for the Andersons, Iris Anderson can’t help but reflect on her observations 10 years later. Her husband did not want to speak out about his observa-tions.

“It feels to me like yester-day,” Anderson said in an interview with The Herald Journal just a month before the 9/11 anniversary. “It’ll always be with me; what hit me ... was a feeling of remorse and guilt that I didn’t stop them — I think that was part of my hysteria. Why couldn’t I have known on the plane what they were going to do?”

Law enforcement offi-cials have never confirmed or denied the Andersons’ account of Flight 176, according to news reports from 2001. So it’s not possi-ble to confirm if it was likely the four men onboard the Andersons’ flight were the

hijackers of 9/11. However, it is accepted that many of the hijackers conducted “test runs” in the days prior to the attacks.

Beads of sweatOn Sept. 8, 2001, the

Andersons had arrived at LAX three hours early. They were bound for United Flight 176, which would connect them to Boston so they could then travel to Quebec City for a week-long cruise.

There was a shuttle bus on the tarmac waiting for them and the passengers of a char-ter plane that had flown from Palm Desert to LAX.

Once the shuttle arrived at Terminal 7, where the Ander-sons were supposed to board their flight, Iris Anderson spotted an “Arabic-looking pilot.” Their “eyes locked” almost instantly.

“I thought, ‘Oh great! Now

See FLIGHT, page 17



Since Then

How has your life changed since 9/11?

“I used to think that everyone loved us, that everyone in the world wanted to live here and be like us. The realization that that isn’t true at all really has forced me to re-examine how we should act on the international stage.”

“I’ve always been patriotic, but since then, it has grown. Every morning at 9:11 a.m., I take a moment to re-member that tragic day. I don’t know, kind of weird, I guess. But it’s what I do.”

“I hear too much political talk. I’ve learned to not get into 9/11 discus-sions.”

“I work more in charity, and I have served in the Army.”

“I don’t take things for granted. I always make the most of every day. I have much more respect for the public service people that gave their lives to save others. I since have become a firefighter and wouldn’t change it for anything.”

On a flight with the terrorists

Tyler Larson/Herald Journal

Logan summer citizen Iris Anderson talks about sharing an airline flight with some of the 9/11 hijackers three days before the attack.

Before their attack, the 9/11 plotters reportedly took ‘test runs,’ and a

Logan summer citizen believes she was ...



FLIGHT, from page 16

we’re going to have Arafat flying our plane,’” Anderson recalled.

That “Arafat-looking” man was named Marwan Al-Shehhi.

Al-Shehhi’s behavior was strange from the get-go: For one thing, his pilot’s uniform was way too big. The shirt he wore, a yellowish color, was blousing, and the sleeves were not tailored for his arm length.

Anderson needed help getting up the steps due to a sprained ankle, and she was carrying a heavy backpack. Maybe this guy would lend her a hand, she thought.

But the request for a simple act of kindness turned into something Anderson would never forget. Al-Shehhi just frowned and broke into such a sweat that his glasses fogged up — and the tem-perature that day was in the lower 70s.

Al-Shehhi fumbled around some more with a big white handkerchief and refused to help Anderson, who eventu-ally made it into the airport with no help.

Anderson and Al-Shehhi would cross paths again as passengers exited in Boston and nodded when Ander-son thanked the crew as she departed the airplane.

On speedKhalid Almihdhar sat for

almost two hours prior to Flight 176 in a neatly pressed dark suit, with his arms tightly clasped around a soft leather black bag.

He was clearly very jittery, Anderson thought to herself, as he was looking in different directions in the terminal, not saying a word.

Could he be on speed? she wondered. Anderson, a retired school teacher who had careers in Seattle and Los Angeles, had been trained to

look for anything suspicious.As Anderson walked back

and forth in the terminal for exercise, Almihdhar noticed and changed his seat every time she walked past him.

A little later, when Anderson told her husband she needed to use the restroom, she turned “abruptly” and Almihdhar become so startled that he just took off with his bag.

He put his head down, ran at “sprint speed in zig-zag” military style, and knocked down about five or six people in the process, Anderson said. One lady carrying a shopping bag glared at him after she was knocked down. Almihdhar ran out of sight.

“I thought, ‘Boy, this guy is odd,’” Anderson said.

The next time the Andersons saw Almihdhar was in the fast-food line at Terminal 7.

“When he was finished, he was very meticulous, slowly wiping his mouth with his napkin, put that down, picked up another and wiped his mouth,” Anderson said. “Then he used several napkins to wipe his hands slowly and carefully. He placed both hands, palms down, on the table, leaned forward and moved his lips silently. I thought it was strange .... then I thought, ‘Oh, he must be say-ing prayers at mealtime.’ Now I think it must have been a Muslim prayer, but you know, I don’t know.”

Almihdhar would sit two rows ahead of the Andersons, across the aisle from Nawaf

Alhazmi, Anderson said.

Cockpit wide openNawaf Alhazmi sat two

rows in front of Don and Iris on board Flight 176, wear-ing a shirt with sweat visible under the arms — but he smelled like perfume.

Almihdhar and Alhazmi would speak German on the flight together, Anderson said. Anderson didn’t know a lick of German, and the only time she understood them was when the two men asked the flight attendant for a “Diet Coca-Cola.”

Meanwhile, Al-Shehhi, still dressed in an oversized pilot’s uniform, was chit-chatting with the attendants.

Throughout the flight, the movie kept starting up and quitting, so the flight atten-dants asked the pilots for help. When the flight was on autopi-lot, they came to help.

“In the meantime, they left the cockpit door open,” Anderson said. “So everybody could see all of the instru-ments. We could walk in and fly the plane. (The terrorists) were looking down there, talking in German, looking, talking in German. They could have walked in and taken care of that plane right then.”

The pilots never got the movie player fixed.

“The woman” seated just a row in front of the California couple caught Anderson’s attention only after Flight 176 had landed. This person was wearing a flowery dress,

but looked very masculine to Anderson.

“The woman” reached for her black bag in the overhead bin as people departed, and Don Anderson tried to assist. But “the woman” pushed him away. After the 9/11 attacks, Anderson told the FBI that the face of “the woman” closely resembled one of the soon-to-be hijackers, Satam Al-Suqami.

Hearing the newsThe Andersons heard the

news when they were in Hal-ifax Harbor, and, like every-one else, were quickly glued to the television set.

It was on CNN they would see the faces of the men they had crossed paths with three days earlier. Al-Shehhi crashed Boeing Flight 767 into the south tower of the World Trade Center; Al-Suqami crashed into the north tower; and Almidhar and Alhazmi both crashed into the Pentagon.

“There were 19 faces on the television, and reports said they were involved in the attacks,” Anderson said. “I’m asking myself, ‘How did they know three days after the attacks who did this? Why didn’t they know three days before?’”

It would take the Andersons another five days to return to the United States. They arrived back at Boston Logan International, from which the planes that hit the north and south towers had departed.

Mum’s the wordAfter she got home, Ander-

son quickly jotted down her observations on a notepad and faxed it to the FBI — no response. She faxed United Airlines — no response. CIA — no response. She would also write to her two Califor-nia senators and her local rep-resentative in Congress — not surprisingly, no response.

Marwan Al-Shehhi

Khalid Almihdhar

Nawaf Alhazmi


During9/11coverage,RatherworkedhardtokeephisemotionsincheckwhileontheairforCBSNews.Itwasagruelingstretchthathadtheveterananchor,thenage69,awakefor48hoursatonepoint. ButwithLetterman,Ratherbriefly

brokedownintearstwice. “Iwasjustengulfed,consumedbygrief,”hesaid.“I’veneverapologizedforthat—didn’tthenandIdon’tnow.Because,onedoesn’tapologizeforgrief.”

■ ■ ■

OnSept.11,2001,Nathaniel Katz,whogrewupinNewJersey,

wasaboutasfarawayfromNewYorkasyoucanget:studyingintheAus-traliancapitalofCanberra.Afriendbroughthimtoastudentloungesohecouldwatch“TheWestWing”forthefirsttime.TheserieswasinterruptedtoshowwhatKatzthoughtwasapri-vateplanecrashingintothetradecen-ter.Hewatchedasotherimagesfilled

thescreen.About30otherpeoplequi-etlystreamedintotheloungebehindKatz,theonlyAmerican.

Totheothersinthelounge,itseemedlikeaHollywoodmovie.ToKatz,itwashome.Hebrokedownandcrieduncontrollably.

Thefirsttangiblelossesbeyonddeathwereobvious,andmassive. TheCantorFitzgeraldbrokerage,wheremorethan650employeeswerekilled,ownedatroveofdrawingsandsculpturesthatincludedacastofRodin’s“TheThinker”—whichresur-facedbrieflyaftertheattacksbeforemysteriouslydisappearingagain.Fragmentsofothersculpturesalsowererecovered.

Trading back to the 1840s TheFerdinandGallozziLibraryofU.S.CustomsServicein6WorldTradeCenterheldacollectionofdocu-mentsrelatedtoU.S.tradedatingbacktoatleastthe1840s.Andinthesamebuildingwerenearly900,000objectsexcavatedfromtheFivePointsneighborhoodoflowerManhattan,afamousworking-classslumofthe19thcentury. TheKennedynegatives,bypho-tographerJacquesLowe,hadbeenstowedawayinafireproofvaultat5WorldTradeCenter,anine-story

buildinginthecomplex.HelenKellerInternational,whoseofficesburnedupwhenitsbuilding,ablockfromthetradecenter,wasstruckbydebris,lostamodestarchive.OnlytwobooksandabustofKellersurvived. Classifiedandconfidentialdocu-mentsalsodisappearedatthePenta-gon,whereAmericanAirlinesFlight77slammedintoiton9/11.

Afghanistan war Aprivatedisasterresponsecom-pany,BMSCAT,washiredtohelprecovermaterialsinthelibrary,wherethejetplane’snosecametorest.Thecompanyclaimeditsavedallbut100volumes.ButtherecoverylimitedaccesstoinformationrelatedtotheSovietinvasionofAfghanistaninthe1980s,astheU.S.preparedtolaunchanattackamonthlater. InNewYork,CIAandSecretSer-vicepersonnelsiftedthroughdebriscartedfromthetradecentertoaStat-enIslandlandfillforlostdocuments,harddriveswithclassifiedinforma-tionandintelligencereports.TheCIAdeclinedtocomment.

WASHINGTON(AP)—TheSept.11attackstransformedthePentagon,ravagingtheiconicbuild-ingitselfandsettingthestagefortwolongandcost-lywarsthatreorderedthewaytheAmericanmilitaryfights. Comparedwithadecadeago,themilitaryisbigger,morecloselyconnectedtotheCIA,morepracticedattakingonterroristsandmorerespectedbytheAmericanpublic.Butitsmembersalsoaregrowingwearyfromwar,commit-tingsuicideatanalarmingrateandtraininglessforconventionalwarfare.

Recovery time ThepartlyguttedPen-tagonwasrestoredwithremarkablespeedafterthehijackedAmericanAir-linesBoeing757slammedthroughitswestside,set-tingthebuildingablazeandkilling184people.ButrecoveringfromthestrainoffightinginIraqandAfghanistanwilltakefarlonger—possiblydecades. ThePentagon’sleaderswillhavetoadjusttoaneweraofausterityafteradecadeinwhichthedefensebudgetdoubled,tonearly$700billionthisyear. TheArmyandMarine

Corpsinparticular—bothstillheavilyengagedinAfghanistan—willstrug-gletoretrain,rearmandreinvigoratetheirbadlystretchedforcesevenasbudgetsbegintoshrink.Andthetroopsthemselvesfaceanuncertainfuture;manyarescarredbythementalstrainsofbattle,andsomefacetransitiontocivilianlifeatatimeofeconomicturmoilandhighunemployment.Thecostofveterans’carewillmarchhigher. Terrorismwasnotanewchallengein2001,butthescaleofthe9/11attackspromptedashiftintheU.S.mindsetfromdefensetooffense.TheU.S.invad-edAfghanistanonOct.7inanunconventionalmilitarycampaignthatwascoordi-natedwiththeCIA.


AP photo

In the rubble: Firefighters walk through rubble of the World Trade Center build-ings on Sept. 11, 2001, after terrorists crashed two airliners into the towers.

LOST, from page 7

A decade of change for the military

After Sept. 11, “agencies did not do precisely what was required vis-a-vis records loss,” said David S. Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, in an email. “Appropriately, agencies were more concerned with loss of life and rebuilding operations — not managing or preserving records.” Jan Ramirez, the curator of the

National September 11 Memorial & Museum, said there was no historical consciousness surrounding the site before it was destroyed. “It was modern, it was dynamic. It was not in peril. It was not something that needed to be preserved,” she said. “Now we know better.”

‘It was modern, It was dynamIc. It was not In perIl’

Transforming the way the U.S. military fights

❛ ... the military is bigger, more closely connected to the CIA, more practiced at taking on terrorists and more

respected by the American public. But its members also are growing weary from war, committing suicide at an alarming rate and training less for conventional warfare. ❜

See MILITARY, page 19

The military as a whole is viewed more favorably by the American public. A Gallup poll in June found that the military is the most respected national institution, with 78 percent expressing great confi-dence in it. That is 11 points higher than its historical Gallup average dating to the early 1970s.

opInIons on the mIlItary




“Ipridemyselfonhavingafairbitofself-controlandIcompletelylostmyselfinthissituation,”saidKatz,nowaministryfellowatHarvardUniversity.“Icouldfeelalltheseeyeballsinthebackofmyhead.ButIdidn’tcare.”

■ ■ ■

Ashleigh Banfield wasworkingatMSNBCthatday,anddisregardedasugges-tionthatshegotothenetwork’sNewJerseyheadquarters.Instead,sheheadeddowntowninacabasfarasitwouldtakeherandthenonfoot.Banfieldwascloseenoughtobeenvelopedintheblackcloudcreatedasthesecondtowercollapsed.Acompanionkicked

inanearbybuilding’sdoorandshesoughtrefugewithapoliceofficerwhoalsowaslookingforasafeplacetobreathe.SheemergedwhenthecloudbegantoliftandflaggeddownanearbyNBCtruckthatcouldfilmherasshegavereportsintoacellphone.

“Forwhateverreason,Ithoughtallof

thebuildingswerecomingdown,”shesaid.“Ifthesetwowerecomingdown,whatwasnext?Iwassoscared.Somanypeoplesaidyouwere

sobravetodothatreportingthatdayandIthinkjusttheopposite.Iwasjustsochildishlyscared.”

MILITARY, from page 18

AP photo

Wounded: A priest prays over a wounded man at the Pentagon as emergency workers from all services help the wounded on Sept. 11, 2001.

FAM

ILIE

ScL

ASSr

ooM

SSk

IES

CHANGED LIVES

See SKIES, page 20

See FAMILIES, page 20

See CLASSROOM, page 20

The new technological star is the drone air-craft, like the Predators that surveil the battlefield and fire missiles at discrete targets. Their popu-larity has spawned an effort to field unmanned aircraft to perform other missions, such as a long-range bomber and even heavy-lift helicopters.

On the battlefield — unmanned aircraft

Thatheraldedoneofthemostprofoundeffectsof9/11:ashiftinthemilitary’semphasisfromfight-ingconventionalarmy-on-armybattlestoexecutingmoresecretive,intelligence-drivenhuntsforshad-owyterrorists. StillindebateishowtheTaliban,whichhadshieldedOsamabinLadenandotheral-QaidafigurespriortotheU.S.inva-sionandwasdrivenfromKabulwithinweeks,managedtomakeacomebackintheyearsaftertheU.S.shifteditsmainfocustoIraqin2003.ThatsetbackinAfghanistan,coupledwiththelonger-than-expectedfightinIraq,showedthelimitsof

post-9/11U.S.mili-tarypower. Inpercentageterms,thebiggestgrowthinthemili-taryhasbeeninthesecretive,eliteunitsknownasspecialoperationsforces.TheysurgedtotheforefrontoftheU.S.military’scounter-terrorcampaignalmostimmediatelyafterthe9/11attacks,helpingrouttheTalibaninlate2001andculminatinginMay2011withtheNavySEALteam’sraidonOsamabinLaden’scompoundinPakistan.Andeventhoughal-Qaida’sglobalreachhasbeendiminished,theincreasedroleofspe-cialoperationsforcesislikelytocontinue.


AP photo

Protective dad: David Rand with his daughter Emma, 5, at their home in Sacramento, Calif.

AP photo

Security: An airline passenger holds his shoes and has an unloosened belt while waiting to go through a checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

AP photo

Teaching: Ivy Preparatory Academy sixth grader Colby DeWindt raises her hand as teacher Jacob Cole leads a class in Norcross, Ga., on the 9/11 terrorist attacks

Teaching kids about 9/11

Staying secure in the air

Parenting in a 9/11 world

(AP)Howdoteachershandlethedauntingtask of trying to explain the significance of9/11 to students who don’t remember whenanyonecouldwalkrightuptothegateattheairport or when Osama bin Laden wasn’t ahouseholdname?

Theanswerisn’tsimple,andithaschangedover timeas the country’s rhetoricabout theattackshasevolved.

Studentsacrossthecountrywillgatherforassemblies,holdmomentsofsilenceandspendhistoryandsocialstudiesclassesfocusingonSept.11thisyear.

(AP) — For most of us, the romance offlight is longgone—losttoSept.11,2001,andhard-setmemoriesofjetscrashingintobuildings.

We remember what it was like before.Keepingall our clothesonat security.Get-ting hot meals for free — even if we com-plainedaboutthetaste.Legroom.

Today, we feel beaten down even beforereachingourseats.Shoesmustbe removedand all but the tiniest amounts of liquidssurrendered at security checkpoints. Lovedonescannolongerkisspassengersgoodbye

(AP) — David Rand cheerfully acknowl-edges he’s an overprotective father. An ex-MarinewhoservedinAfghanistanandIraq,he’salsoasingledadto5-year-oldEmma.

And so when Emma’s grandmother sug-gested recently that the girl come visit herinTexas,flyingfromCaliforniaasanunac-companied minor, Rand had a blunt reac-tion:“Heck,no!”

He cites Sept. 11 as part of the reason.“Theimagesjustgothroughyourmind,”hesays.“Iwouldn’tbeableto livewithmyselfifsomethingterriblehappenedandIwasn’t




■ ■ ■

KnowingthelocationofhiswifeKatherine’sofficeandthetrajectoryofthefirstplanetohittheWorldTradeCenter,Charles Wolf eventuallybecameconvincedshewaskilledinstantlyon

Sept.11.Heneverheardfromherthatmorning.

Formostpeople,televisionthatdaywasawaytoexperienceaterriblestorythatdidnotyetinvolvethem.ForWolf,itwasalifeline.TViswherehegothisinformation,learningareasthatweresetupforpossiblesurvivorsorplacestofind

outaboutvictims.

“You’relookingforshredsofevidenceofwhethershe’saliveordead,”hesaid.

Hewatchedthecoverageforhours,eventhoughdeepdownheknewKath-erine’sfatewhenhesawthenorthtowercollapse. Whatgrewexcruciatingwaswhen

networksplayedkeyfootageoverandover,particularlyofthesecondplanehit-tingthesouthtower.Hehasnointerestinwatching10thanniversarycoverage,whichhecalls“made-for-ratingstelevi-sion.”Instead,hewillattendapublicmemorialatgroundzero.

— By the Associated Press

(AP) — Six days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Major League Baseball returned to the field with a new ritual.

During the seventh-inning stretch, a moment typically reserved for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” another song played at parks around the country: “God Bless America.”

Everybody sang along, that night and for weeks afterward.

In a World Series that year between the Diamond-backs and the Yankees, one of the most enduring mem-ories came during Game 3 in New York, when 56,000 people at Yankee Stadium joined in a melancholy rendi-tion of the tune as a tattered flag recovered at the World Trade Center site fluttered on a pole above the center field scoreboard.

When America was still in shock, baseball was there to help start the healing.

“It sent chills down and a lot of tears,” Commission-er Bud Selig remembered. “Almost overpoweringly emo-tional.”

Ten years later, “God Bless America” has become woven into the fabric of baseball. It’s still played every game in the case of two teams, the Yan-kees and Los Angeles Dodg-ers. But most teams have scaled back, and Los Angeles Angels outfielder Torii Hunter sees nothing wrong with that.

“I think it’s OK to move forward,” Hunter said. “Most ballparks do not play ‘God Bless America’ every game. But you’ll never forget that day, the people who fell, the people who have fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan since then.”

BaseBall

AP photo

God Bless America: In this Sept. 17, 2001, file photo, the Colo-rado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks meet in the infield to hold the American flag during “God Bless America” and the national anthem to mark the first game in Denver’s Coors Field, since the Sept. 11 attacks.

‘God Bless America:’ A new ritual at the ballpark

changed lives

with her. If she were alone, and it was an attack — the guilt would just be too much.”

Ten years after the attacks, there’s no question that Sept. 11 continues to impact our national psyche, and some of that can be seen in how we raise our chil-dren: Tightening curfews, giv-ing children cell phones to keep bet ter track of them, even barring them from air travel.

Rand, the e x - M a r i n e , now a 31-year-old college stu-dent in Sacra-mento, says h i s d au g h -t e r “ h a s n ’ t asked” about 9/11, “and I haven’t vol-unteered the information. I w o u l d n ’ t want to scare a 5-year-old to death.”

W hen the t ime i s r ight , though, he will tell her. And he’s also open to bringing her to New York some day. “The odds of the same thing happening are so remote,” he says.

Though it ’s been a decade, just a few states and school dis-tricts have a set curriculum for teaching Sept. 11. For the most part, states and school districts leave it up to the teacher, which can mean some students don’t hear about it at all.

Louisville, Ky., f ifth-grade teacher Carla Kolodey starts her lessons with a description of life before Sept. 11. She tells them they can leave the class-room if necessary, then shows them TV footage and newspaper clips of the attacks. She brings in speakers who lost a fam-ily member in the World Trade Center or who have other per-sonal connections to the day.

“I’ve had kids in tears who have to step out and collect themselves,” said Kolodey, 31, whose social studies textbook dedicates just one page to Sept. 11.

SKIES, from page 19

at the gate.

“Anytime I walk into an air-port, I feel like a victim,” said Lexa Shafer, of Norman, Okla. “I’m sorry that we have to live this way because of bad guys.”

Frequent f l iers k now the ever-changing set of security rules. Most others don’t.

“ I ’m not rea l ly conv inced that any of th is secur ity is doing a ny th ing other tha n making people feel safe,” said Matthew Von K luge, of Chi-cago.

But Diane Dragg, of Nor-man, Okla., said: “I’d rather do it than be blown up.”

FAMILIES, from page 19CLASSROOM, from page 19

AP photo

History lesson: Students watch TV footage from Sept. 11, 2001.

AP photo

Talking to kids: When the time is right, David Rand will tell daughter Emma about the 9/11 attacks.




Iconic images — Sept. 11, 2001

By The Associated Press

PeoplelookatsomenewsphotosshotonSept.11,2001,andwonderhowthosewhotookthemcouldbeartokeepworkinginthefaceofsuchtragedy. Fivewhoseimagesofthatdaybecameiconicdiscussedhowthephotoscameaboutandhowtheirlenseshelpedshieldthemfromwhatwouldcomelater.

■ Marty LederhandlerAfter65yearswiththeAP,MartyLederhandlerhadprettymuchseenanddoneitall.In1937,ayearafterjoiningthewireservice,he’dhelpedcover

theHindenburgdisaster.Sevenyearslater,Lt.LederhandlerwadedashoreatUtahBeachonD-Day,twocarrierpigeonsstowedsafelyinhisbagtowinghisundevelopedfilmbackacrosstheEnglishChannel. “TheonlyotherstorythatcomparestothisisD-Day,”hesaid. Lederhandlerretiredthreemonthslater.Hediedlastyearat92.

■ Richard DrewAsa21-year-oldshooterforthePasadenaIndependent-StarNews,RichardDrewwasattheAmbassadorHotelin

LosAngelesonJune5,1968,whereRobertKennedy,freshfromwinningtheCaliforniaDemocraticpresidentialprimary,wasshot.DrewwasoneofonlyfourphotographerstocaptureKennedy’slastmoments. OnSept.11,Drewwasonassignment,whenhiscellphonerang. “Aplane’shittheWorldTradeCenter,”photoeditorBarbaraWoikesaid. DrewrushedtothesubwayandtooktheNo.2traintoChambersStreet.Hetookupapositionnearalineofambulancestowaitforcasualtieswhensuddenlyaparamedicshouted,“Look!There’speoplecomingoutoftheWorldTradeCenter.” Butshewasn’tpointingdownthestreet.Shewaspointingup. “Ijustsortofclickedintoautomaticpilot,”Drewrecalled,“andstartedtakingpicturesofthepeoplefallingoutofthebuilding.”

■ Doug MillsPhotographerDougMillswascoveringPresidentGeorgeW.BushontheroadonSept.11.Theday’sfirstevent—avisitwithkidsatEmmaE.BookerElemen-

tarySchool—provedanythingbuttypical.

Lenses shield 9/ll photographers

See ICONIC, page 22

AP photo by Marty Lederhandler

AP photo by Richard Drew

AP file photo

AP photo by Doug Mills

Marty Lederhandler had pretty much seen and done it all.

In 1937, he’d helped cover the Hindenburg disaster. Seven years

later, Lt. Lederhandler waded ashore at Utah Beach on D-Day,

two carrier pigeons stowed safely in his bag to wing his

undeveloped film back across the English Channel.

‘The only other story that compares to this is D-Day,’

Lederhandler said.

AP photo by Marty Lederhandler


Aboutfiveminutesintothevisitattheschool,theclassroomdooropened,andWhiteHousechiefofstaffAndyCardsteppedinside.Mills’antennaeimmediatelywentup:Cardalmostneverattendedeventslikethis. Afterafewmoments,Cardwalkedtothefrontoftheroom,leanedinandwhisperedsomethingintoBush’srightear.Thepresident’sfacewentblank.■ Amy SancettaOhio-basedAPnationalphotogra-pherAmySancettacaughtacabandrodedownBroadwayuntilapolicebar-ricadestoppedherfromgoingfarther.Bythen,thesecondtowerwasalreadysmoking.Shegotouther80-200mmzoomlensandbeganscanningtherowsofwindowsofthesouthtowerforfaces. Suddenly,sheheardathunderousrumbling.Shewatchedthroughherlensasthetower’stop“kindofcrackedandstartedtofallinonitself.” Shecouldsqueezeoffonlyaboutahalf-dozenframesbeforethetowerdisappeared.Peoplewererushingpast,buffetingherastheyranpell-mellfromtherisingdebriscloud.Sheranabouthalfablock,thenturnedintoaparkinggarage—justasthecloudwhooshedpast. Whenshefinallyemerged,shesteppedintowhatlookedlikea“win-terwonderlandofdebris.”Shebeganpickingherwaybacktowardthetradecenter,shootingasshewent.Whensheheardasecondrumble,sheloweredhercameraandran. Atlast,shereachedtheofficeandwasabletoseewhatshehad:thebeginningofthesouthtower’send.

■ Gulnara SamoilovaGulnaraSamoilova’sapartmentwasjustfourblocksfromtheWorldTradeCenter.Shegrabbedhercameraandahandful

offilm,andheadedintothestreet. Enteringthesouthtower,shequicklydecidedthescenewastoocha-otictoshoot,andretreated.Backout-side,shewasstandingrightbeneaththesouthtowerwhenitbegantocrumble.Shegotoffonemoreshotbeforesomeonenearbyscreamed,“RUN!” Theforceofthecollapse“waslikeamini-earthquake,”knockingheroffherfeet.Peoplebegantramplingher. “IwasafraidIwoulddierightthere,”the46-year-oldphotographersays.Shegotupjustasthecloudwasabouttoenvelopher.Shedovebehindacarandcrouched. “Itwasverydarkandsilent,”shesays.“IthoughtIwasburiedalive.”

ICONIC, from page 21

AP photo by Amy Sancetta

AP photos by Gulnara Samoilova

Entering the south tower, Gulnara Samoilova quickly decided the scene was too chaotic to shoot, and retreated. Back outside, she was standing right beneath the south tower when it began to crumble.

She got off one more shot before someone nearby screamed, ‘RUN!’

AP photo by Mark Lennihan

AP photo by Amy Sancetta

AP photo by Daniel Shanken



tabernacle each year, includ-ing the Noon Music at the Tabernacle series and the interfaith Thanksgiving and Christmas services sponsored by the group.

“We’ve just had good con-tinuity all the way through, consistent participation from all of the faiths, and I think we’ve tried to do things,” Quayle said. “It’s just not come together and meet once a week, or once a month, we try to really do something.”

But the ways in which Cache Community Connec-tions has altered the commu-

nity go beyond the meetings and events.

“From my standpoint, one of the benefits I see in this group is that we have a foun-dation of relationships and trust that enable us to kind of tackle issues and things that might be more difficult if that trust wasn’t there,” said Paul Heins, pastor of Logan’s First Presbyterian Church and current chair of Cache Com-munity Connections. “If you don’t know the person on the other side of the table, it’s much more difficult to talk about some things, but when

you know and when you’re friends with the other person across the table, you’re able to deal with more significant things, and to talk about chal-lenges that we face together.”

The key to successThompson said the key

to the group’s longevity is Teresa Harris, Logan city’s recorder, who volunteers her own time to take minutes of the group’s meetings and send out email reminders.

But at least some measure of the group’s success can be attributed to the people of

Cache Valley themselves.“There’s a genuine desire

to better the community, and to bring people together. And when you have that genuine desire, and people like and trust each other, I think that opens a lot of doors,” Heins said. “And I think there are still boundaries that we can cross, and I think there are still bridges that we can build and relationships that we can nurture. But I think there’s a wonderful foundation of openness and collegiality that I’ve discovered since we (my family and I) have been here.”

The couple’s sons — Kai, 8, and Kennet, 6 — don’t hesitate to walk up to their father’s head-stone and start sharing thoughts about school, their day, their feelings and even sing a song or two.

Talking about what happened to Dad, said Alleman, is never an off-limits topic.

“We talk about it all the time,” she said. “It’s never a taboo thing. It takes people aback because my kids are so open about him and the fact that they know they’re going to see him again.”

Being the wife of a fallen soldier brings pain, pride and a sense of patriotism to Alleman. She says the death of her husband did not change

her feelings about the wars in Iraq and Afghan-istan but rather fortified her love of freedom.

“My feelings haven’t changed in a negative way,” she said. “My hus-band was so courageous that he gave his life for it. The No. 1 word that comes to my mind is grateful. I’m grateful to be married to such a man.”

Micheal Alleman kept a journal while in basic training in December 2007.His wife keeps the leather-bound book in a safe place and has mem-orized certain entries.

She said Micheal wanted to join the military even before the Sept. 11 attacks. In one of his entries he writes he regretted thinking his family obligations were

CONNECT, from page 11

ALLEMAN, from page 13


Zell Allred, right, and Maria Mendez stand at an August memorial service in Logan honoring slain U.S. Marine Norberto Mendez-Hernandez.

We talk about it all the time. It’s never a taboo thing. It takes peo-ple aback because my kids are so open about him ...

— Amy Alleman, about her husband’s death

‘

‘

an excuse for him to not serve in the mili-tary.

“I was wrong,” she read from the entry. “You are not a reason to avoid military ser-vice, you are exactly the reason that I should stand up as a father and

a husband and do my duty as a man.”

In all, Alleman served 13 months in the U.S. Army.

His death left his wife and kids balancing a daily mix of emotions from honor and grief to sadness and hope.

“It’s hard when you know that everyone else’s life continues and yours has stopped dead in its tracks,” she said. “I’m grateful, but there’s a humongous hole in my heart. I miss him so much, and I’ve never met anyone that can make me laugh the way he does and make me feel the way he does.”

To keep Micheal’s memory alive, Alleman runs marathons — something her husband encouraged her to do before his death.

“I never told him this, but I made a silent promise that if anything ever happened to him, I’d run a marathon every year for him,” she said. “When he died I looked back and real-ized I’d have to exer-cise every day for the rest of my life.”

The prospect still elicits a laughable sigh.

Alleman ran her first marathon the day her husband was supposed to come home from Iraq.

TIM STEWARTFor The Herald Journal

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, I was working for

Congressman Jim Hansen as the legislative director for the House Committee on Resources in the U.S. Con-gress.

At 8:45 that morning, I was at my desk in the House Longworth Building, south-west corner. I had just gotten into the office and was sitting down at my computer. My TV was on, and CNN cut to the local New York affiliate where there was a report of a small plane hitting the World Trade Center.

For the next 10 minutes or so I was interested, but my attention wasn’t captured. I don’t think I even said any-thing to anyone else in the office until the second plane hit the second tower. I came out and said to the staff, “Are you guys watching the news?”

Over the next few minutes it was clear this was not an accident but something else. I went back into my office, called my wife to tell her to turn on the TV and, like everyone else, started flip-ping channels. It was an intense 45 minutes or so, but it didn’t seem like 45 min-utes. Looking back, it was amazing the amount of infor-mation generated in such a short period of time.

At about 9:45 a.m. my sec-retary, Liz Howell, a 25-year-old from Honeyville, Utah, burst into my office and said, “The news is saying there was an explosion at the Pen-tagon. My husband works at the Pentagon.”

Liz was married to Brady Howell. They had just recent-ly moved to the D.C. area,

where Brady was working as a new Presidential Manage-ment Fellow, which was a very prestigious position. He had been assigned to work for the Navy on an intelligence project at the Pentagon. I had never actually met Brady. In fact, I called him the Snuffle-upagus — Big Bird’s imagi-nary friend from Sesame Street. I heard all these great things about Brady but had never met him. I used to tease Liz that she was married to Snuffleupagus and everyone had seen him but me.

Liz was rightfully wor-ried, so she called Brady on his cellphone — which she was not supposed to do. If I recall correctly, due to his intelligence role, he was not allowed to communicate out-side the building during the day. Brady didn’t answer the phone.

About five minutes later,

the committee’s office man-ager, Linda Livingston, arrived. She was visibly shaken. Linda was normally pretty unflappable, but she was shaken up. She said, “I just saw an airplane crash into the Pentagon.” Linda had been driving into work up Interstate 395 and had come over the rise just west of the Pentagon, just as Flight 77 flew over the freeway at very low level and hit directly into the building. She tried to describe what type of plane it was, and how big it was, but it happened really fast, she said.

Our third-floor windows in the Longworth Building looked out to the southwest, where we could see the Potomac, Crystal City and South Arlington, including the Pentagon.

We could see this thick black smoke rising from the

other side of the river. Any-one could see it from all over the city.

Then the Capitol evacu-ation order happened. It seemed like it took a while for us to actually get the word to leave the building, and then it took a while for peo-ple to take it seriously that we needed to get out of the building. In fact, I remember watching television in the front office as the first tower collapsed. I remember say-ing to someone, “There are 50,000 people who work in that building.” And then it hit me. This event, unfolding before us, was worse than I first imagined.

I called Marcia again and told her we were evacuating.

I was one of the last two people out of our office. It was pretty orderly getting out of the building. Everyone had to take the stairs. But the funny thing was that every-one got out of the building but didn’t know where to go next. We all just stood there on the sidewalks and in the parking lots. There was tre-mendous chatter on the police radios, nonstop, loud police chatter. Rumors were flying everywhere about everything: Somebody had heard about bombs going off at the State Department, and someone had heard the White House had been hit. Everyone was on their cellphones; not everyone had Blackberries yet, and sometimes you could get through and sometimes you couldn’t. Some people got on the Metro, which was still running. Some people got in their cars and left. You could hear hundreds of sirens.

And then some F-15s flew right overhead at a really low

See DAY, page 25



Photo courtesy Lee Roderick

A memorial bench at the Pentagon lists the name of 9/11 victim Brady Howell, a former Logan resident and Herald Journal employee.

Valley resident recallsterrifying day in D.C.

First person account



DAY, from page 24

level. That was really creepy. You just don’t see fighter jets flying over the Capitol. There were helicopters every-where, too.

I remember standing on the sidewalk by the parking lot where my car was. I asked one of the cops, “Where do we go?” He said, “I don’t know — go home, just go some-where, just get out.”

His radio was on his belt and then we heard someone on the radio yell, “There’s another plane on the way. Get everyone away from the buildings. Get everyone away from the buildings!”

The parking lot

attendant standing there said, “This is f-ing crazy, man. F-ing crazy …” and then all of the Capitol police started to yell at every-one to run away. They told people to run and so people started run-ning in all directions. They didn’t know where to run, they just scattered in all direc-tions, some even ran toward the Capitol.

Some people were getting into their cars and leaving, pulling out of the parking lots. I remember how order-ly and courteous driv-ers were to each other, letting them merge in, etc. ... which on any normal day would have been a free-for-all. Traffic wasn’t all

And this is what I remember most of all: I remember how calm Liz Howell was. She was as calm as a summer morning. — Tim Stewart, on his friend Liz Howell, who would later learn her husband had died in the Pentagon attack

‘

‘

that bad getting away from the Capitol com-plex, but the sidewalks and streets were full of people walking, some running.

The lines at the Metro were extraordi-nary. Steve Petersen, Liz Howell and Cody Stewart were with me, and I offered to give them rides across the river. We all piled into my Ford Explorer and pulled out of the park-ing lot. I remember Steve saying, “We shouldn’t drive across the 14th Street bridge,” so we made a decision to head south and cross over the Wilson Bridge instead, a 14-mile detour.

The minute we hit the Southwest freeway, we hit all the evacu-ation traffic going south. And all we could do was listen to the radio — the col-lapse of the second World Trade Center tower, and the reported crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. I remember Peter Jen-nings speculated that perhaps that flight was inbound for Washing-ton, D.C.

About that time, crawling along in traf-

fic on the Southwest Freeway, it hit us exactly how close we might have actually come.

Liz Howell kept try-ing to reach Brady, but there was no answer. We reassured her that the Pentagon was a big, big building and that he would be OK, that he was in emer-gency mode and was doing his job trying to find out who was responsible for doing this. The first thing these teams do is go deep in the bunker to do their jobs.

And this is what I remember most of all: I remember how calm Liz Howell was.

She was as calm as a summer morning. I remember looking in the rearview mirror at her as she sat in the back seat of my SUV — doing her statistics homework, because she was in school at the time taking classes, and she had an assign-ment due that night. Every few minutes she would dial Brady to see if he would answer. No answer. She was incredibly calm and composed. She knew everything would be

OK. I was amazed by that.

We crawled across the Wilson Bridge. I remember being thank-ful to be on that side of the river finally because I knew if I had to, I could walk home. We turned north up Route 1 toward Crystal City so we could take Liz home. She and Brady lived in an apartment build-ing directly across the freeway from the Pen-tagon.

Driving north, we could see smoke still coming up from the building. Traffic stopped completely about a mile from where we needed to be. Steve arranged for a meeting point with his wife and he got out first. Finally, Liz said, “I am just going to get out and walk home.” So she did. I told her to call me as soon as she heard from Brady. Then Cody and I inched our way back to Falls Church. We finally made it home at about 1 p.m. or so.

I remember trying to explain to my 4-year-old why “those two

See DAY, page 27

Liz and Brady Howell

The Herald Journal front page on Sept. 12, 2001



CHARLES GERACIHerald Journal

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop vividly remembers the fate-ful day 10 years ago when the Sept. 11 attacks shook the country.

He was teaching a gov-ernment class at Box Elder High School in Brigham City that day.

“We actually watched (the coverage) for a big part of the first period,” said Bish-op, R-Utah. “I think 9/11 is for me like when Kennedy was shot and when Reagan was shot. I will remember exactly where I was when it was announced.”

Bishop recently took some time with The Herald Jour-nal to reflect on the events of Sept. 11 and remember those who lost their lives in the tragedy.

HJ: What were your thoughts and emotions on that day?

RB: Actually, to be hon-

est, the first feeling was almost surreal — this is not really happening; this type of thing does not happen. And then eventually as the towers fell down, it was a feeling of — it’s hard to describe it — it was one of actual fear and concern. Like, what else was going to take place?

HJ: What progress has the United States made since 9/11 from a security stand-point?

RB: We have made signif-icant changes and are much more security conscious because of it. Nowhere is that clearer than in Wash-ington, where people used to be able to come into the Capitol building and wander at will. ... The kinds of bar-ricades, the metal detectors, all those types of things — it is clearly unique. What we do at airports has clearly changed the way we live, and it’s becoming almost routine.

Congressman reflects on 9/11 impact then and now

Q&A

The threat to America will always be changing in some way. We can prepare for another airplane attack like this was. The chance of it ever happening again diminishes with time. But we do know that some-where along the way, there will be another effort to attack us. ... So our entire lives have changed. ... We are more secure than we were before; we are taking it seriously. Sometimes I don’t know if that actually helps us. I don’t necessar-

ily know if all the changes are for the better, but our lives have changed.

HJ: What challenges do we currently face?

RB: We face a difficult challenge of trying to maintain public security and safety and not destroy-ing individual liberty in so doing it. That is always a conundrum. It’s always a difficult line to walk. ... But clearly, what was

See BISHOP, page 27


Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, speaks during a recent town meeting in Hyrum.

We can prepare for another airplane attack like this was. The chance of it ever happening again diminishes with time. But we do know that somewhere along the way, there will be another effort to attack us.

— U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah

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DAY, from page 25

buildings fell down.” That was hard.

At 2 p.m. Liz called me and said she was home but hadn’t yet heard from Brady. We all began to pray for her.

Congressman Hansen and the senior staff talked later that afternoon. I was consumed with the news and honestly forgot about Liz for a few hours, until around 5:30 p.m. when Liz called again. Still nothing. At that point we knew the news was not good. At 8 p.m. when we talked again she was still very hopeful, but it was becoming evident that Brady was missing, injured or worse.

Congressman Hansen and his chief of staff, Nancy Blockinger, went over to her place that night to be with her. They were with her when she got the news from the Pentagon that Brady was missing. Throughout the next few days, the congressman was incredible. He was at his finest as a leader and as a person. I gained even greater respect for him dur-ing that time.

Brady Howell was killed Sept. 11, 2001, when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. He was at his post, serving his country in the fight against terrorism when ter-rorists took his life.

The question you posed to peo-ple was, “How has 9/11 changed your life?” The events of the day have left an indelible impression on me. Even today as I walk in front of the Capitol, the thought flashes through my mind, “What if a plane flew over me right now: What would I do?” I keep running shoes in my office and a stash of food and water in my desk in case of an attack where I have to walk home or get trapped in my office. I now have a small survival bag underneath my desk. Since my office is a block from the Capitol, I have to be very realistic that someday I might be blown up. Even with last week’s earthquake, my business partner, who was in the Capitol at the

taken as a much more open and carefree life-style will not happen again.

HJ: How significant do you think the killing of Osama bin Laden was to all of this?

RB: Actually, I think it did make a difference with al-Qaida. ... The anti-American radicals have kind of franchised out. There are more groups now than simply al-Qaida. So yeah, I think it was a significant blow to al-Qaida, and al-Qaida will probably never recover from it. But there are other groups out there that are willing and desir-ous of carrying the torch against us. So there are other groups out there that are still significant that we have to monitor and be ever watchful of.

HJ: Some people have conspiracy theories relat-ed to 9/11. Any time you turn on the History Chan-nel and see those types of programs, what runs through your head?

RB: I still hear con-spiracy theories about Pearl Harbor and Lin-coln’s assassination, but to be honest, I don’t believe them.

HJ: Are you at all con-cerned about the anniver-sary of 9/11 — that some group may try some type of terrorist act on the country?

RB: You know, in the back of my mind, yes, I am. There is always that fear. But I also know that those people who are in charge of trying to make us secure recognize that as well. And it’s not a

debilitating fear. ... So it’s not going to change my lifestyle.

HJ: What are your thoughts about those who lost their lives on 9/11?

RB: The people who lost their lives there, it is tragic, and in this life, there will never be fair-ness to it. ... There are some people who lived their lives on that day who showed such great courage that I am in awe of them — the ones who took the plane down into the field in Pennsylvania that clearly was aimed at the Capitol building. I mean, that was clearly people who showed forth the kind of courage that you only hope in a cri-sis situation you would have.

Those who risked their lives to help other people and lost their lives in helping other people at Ground Zero in New York — they are the greatest human beings possible. The kind of courage they displayed is something; there are no words to describe how great it is.

There will always be kind of a lump in your throat and a soft spot in your heart with gratitude for those who did so much for other people, and with compassion for those who lost their lives and with compassion for those who were left behind — that will have to live with that tragedy over and over again. But it showed, in this great trial for America, the greatness in the people of America. ... This allowed Americans to shine forth in the best light that could ever be.

I keep running shoes in my office and a stash of food and water in my desk in case of an attack where I have to walk home or get trapped in my office. I now have a small survival bag underneath my desk.

— Tim Stewart, valley-based lobbyist, on how 9/11 has changed him

BISHOP, from page 26

time, said he thought a bomb had gone off. He was more surprised to find out it was an earthquake. “A bomb? Meh. An earthquake? Wow. That’s crazy.” I guess that is the harsh reality of the post-9/11 world.

More important to me, how-ever, than the events of the day were the days that followed. A series of miracles unfolded, which I think helped a griev-ing 25-year-old woman cope with a life-altering tragedy.

Liz and I have since lost touch, but she has left a more indelible impression on me than the actual events of 9/11. The story of the survivors is as remarkable as the events themselves.——————————————Tim Stewart grew up in North Logan and graduated from Utah State University. He now splits his time between Cache Valley and Washington, D.C., where he works as founder of American Capitol Group and The Bennett Consulting Group. He lobbies Congress on behalf of dozens of companies and government organizations, including the city of Logan.

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September 11: The Day the World Changed

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