September 11 The Day The World Changed

September 11 I The Day the World Changed Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011 I Page 1

PIONEER NEWSPAPERS • September 11, 2011

September 11The day the world changed

September 11 I The Day the World ChangedPage 2 I Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011

I R OF THE HEROES OF 9/11 10 YEARS AGO

September 11 I The Day the World Changed Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011 I Page 3September 11 The Day the World Changed Page 3Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011

The Day the World Changed: 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.

Casey Owens remembers this about Sept. 11, 2001: he was home from school sick, lying in his mom’s bed and watching cartoons on TV. He was 7 years old. The phone rang, and Owens’ mom changed the channel to a news station. The Twin Towers were burning in New York, some 750 miles from the family’s Summerville, S.C., home.

Owens’ mom started crying. “I was worried because my mom was worried,” he said. “I was scared. She said there might be a war com-ing to the U.S. I just wanted to watch cartoons again.” A decade later, Owens sits in an Army recruiting office in an eastern South Carolina strip mall with his mother. When he gradu-ates from high school, the 17-year-old will go to boot camp next June. Sept. 11 attacks, he said, were

his inspiration. The tens of thousands of young men and women like Owens who have enlisted in the military this year grew up in the shadow of 9/11, often too young to remem-ber the world well before it. Some say they want to serve a country that’s been at war against terrorism since early childhood; others say they want to find control in a world that’s seemingly spun out of control.

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

9:59 a.m.: South tower of World Trade Center col-lapses. 10:03 a.m.: United Flight 93 crashes near Shanks-ville, Pa., after passengers struggle with hijackers. 10:28 a.m.: North tower of the World Trade Center collapses. 4 p.m.: U.S. officials identify Osama bin Laden as being involved in attacks. 5:25 p.m.: The evacu-ated 47-story Seven World Trade Center collapses. 8:30 p.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 7:59 a.m.: American Air-lines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 with 87 passengers, leaves Boston for Los Angeles.

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

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

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

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

September 11 I The Day the World ChangedPage 4 I Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011 September 11 The Day the World ChangedPage 4 Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011

The first indication of the horrors to come was a single camera shot that sud-denly appeared on television sets through-out the world: a skyscraper bathed in the morning sun, smoke pouring from a ragged hole in its side. The images grew even

worse, as the entire world witnessed the death and destruction of Sept. 11, 2001.

Whether in a bar in Tahiti or office building in New York, televi-sion was the central gathering place for people to experience 9/11.

■ ■ ■

Tom Brokaw was relieved to be in New York Sept. 11 and not out of town on assignment when the biggest story of his career broke. NBC News’ chief anchor found out later just how huge a relief it was to be. “For those of us on the air, we were out there without a net of any kind,” he said.

“We had no idea what was going to happen next. No one else did either.” Most Americans learned what hap-pened on Sept. 11 and the ensuing days through three men: Brokaw of NBC News, Peter Jennings of ABC News and Dan Rather of CBS News.

Watching on September 11

TIMELINE, from page 3

See WATCHING, page 6

“I believe that terrorists will have plans in the future,” said Tim Freeman, 20, a Marine recruit from Beaufort, S.C. “But our military’s going to be waiting for it.” Ten years ago, Freeman was in fifth grade. His dad pulled him out of school after the first plane hit and Freeman remembers being confused because all the grown-ups were crying and stone-faced. Military recruitment did not surge in the years after Sept. 11; the Army met its recruitment goals in 2001 and 2002, but by 2005, had fallen short of its 80,000-person goal. Yet there were people who enlist-ed because they were angry at the terrorists. And the weak economy played a role. Branches of the military now report that they are meeting — or even exceeding — their recruitment goals and are attracting better qualified recruits, largely because of the lack of jobs for young people. Military service ensures a paycheck and benefits.

GI Bill Another perk: the post-9/11 GI Bill, which pays for full tuition and fees for all public universities and colleges and a monthly housing allowance for those who have at least 90 days of service since Sept. 11, 2001. Angelo Haygood, the deputy chief of recruiting operations for the Air Force, said that all recruits are asked their top three reasons for joining the service.

In seven out of the past 10 years, recruits have cited “patriotism” as a reason for joining, Haygood said. But he’s reluctant to say that Sept. 11 was the sole motivator for people to enlist in the Air Force. “For those who were interested in joining, Sept. 11 gave them a confir-mation that their decision was the

right one,” he said.A long process

Matthew Locklair, a 22-year-old Army officer candidate recruit from South Carolina, said it took years to process the effect that 9/11 had on his country, years before he thought about enlisting. When his seventh-grade science teacher announced to the class that “there’s been an attack on America,” Locklair remembered, “I thought she meant there was an attack on Summerville’s town hall. I couldn’t really comprehend the loss until years later.” Locklair never thought about joining the military until he went to school in Egypt, at The Ameri-can University in Cairo. There, he learned about defense policy and

Sept. 11, and was interested enough to enlist. The attack that happened on U.S. soil 10 years ago, he said, is even harder to stomach now that he’s an adult. “Now I see the footage of the towers crumbling and I can’t even stand to watch it,” he said. “It’s just

a somber thing in the consciousness of my mind.”

Waiting Stuart Gaskins, who has been a Marine for a year and is stationed at Parris Island, S.C., was eager to celebrate his 15th birthday on Sept. 11, 2001. Instead, he watched the attacks on TV in his second period world his-tory class in Bowie, Md., and went home soon after. Gaskins’ father worked at the Pentagon and it was hours before Gas-kins learned that his father was alive.

As a young teen, Gaskins said he was “kind of a pacifist.” His father, who had served in the military, often traveled around the world for conflicts. “9/11 changed my mindset,” Gas-kins said. “It changed something inside of me. It made me want to fight for my country. We all became vulnerable. It became real.”

❛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.


I still find it very hard to think of September 11th. It’s easier as the years go by, but still quite dif-ficult. Ultimately, I figure that’s a good reason to write about it. I was living in Jersey City, N.J. and working in New York City in September 2001. My husband Stephen and I had a cute little apartment on the Palisades — a long cliff set back a bit from the Hudson River — that overlooked the New York skyline. The view from our kitchen window and the window in our shower went from the Verrazano Narrows bridge at the southern tip of the island all the way north to the George Washington Bridge. If you flat-tened your left cheek up against the window and peered south you could even see the Statue of Liberty.

The towers were the most prominent feature of the view.

Like everyone else, I spent the rest of the day watching the whole thing unfold. The difference was I had the view from my window as corroboration of the unbelievable images on the screen. I looked like I was at a tennis match. TV, window, TV, window. Much of the footage was shot from New Jersey so they often looked the same. It was very strange.

Stephen had already left for the city that morning, taking the midtown PATH train, when I woke up to workers outside my window talking about something I couldn’t quite make out. But it was clearly bad and got me up out of bed seconds after the second plane hit. I saw the smoke pour-ing from the tops of towers as I was turning on the TV to find out what happened. They were just realizing it wasn’t an accident. Thankfully, I was able to talk to Stephen early, before calls stopped going through, and hear that his train — his usual one didn’t go through the WTC ter-minal, but you never know when someone will change up their routine or get diverted to another

train — took him safely to where he was going. He was uptown, far from the action. Though he started trying in the late morn-ing, he wasn’t able to make his way home until much later that evening.

One train station finally opened up to run trains on a direct route to a sigle terminal in New Jersey. Police pushed silent, frightened commuters (many of them covered in ash) through as fast as they could — no charge, no stops along the way, each train filled to capacity just to get people off the island. He was lucky, others had to walk through the tunnels and many of our friends who lived in Brooklyn had to walk home across the Brooklyn Bridge. I thank god I didn’t have binocu-lars or a telescope and that I don’t have to be haunted by the images of the people jumping from and burning in the windows. I prob-ably would have looked. It’s just my nature. But I think it would have damaged me, deeply, for life.

One of the starkest realiza-tions of the day was when the first tower fell.

For minutes on the news they were saying, “Something just hap-pened! We don’t know what just happened! We’re waiting for news of what’s going on.”

But I knew. The perspective of distance gave me a leg up on the reporters and eye witnesses on the street who had been engulfed in a cloud of smoke and ash. I could see from my window that the top of the first building no lon-ger stood even with its neighbor. I could see that it was falling. I watched as the top plummeted like an express elevator going down.

I was telling them. Stand-ing there in the kitchen, I was answering their questions, telling them that the tower had fallen. They didn’t hear me, or the thousands of other people who were probably looking out their windows saying the same thing. Telling the TV the horrible thing they’d just witnessed. But the reporters, and everyone else in America, figured it out soon enough.

By that afternoon, the air where I lived was filled with fallou — ash, tiny bits of office paper, tiny bits of god knows what else. It was horrifying.

I didn’t leave my house for over a week. And I didn’t go back into the city to work for more than two weeks. It wasn’t fear of something else happening. I was just rocked to my core. I was scared, but I was scared more of the emotion, I think.

My first trip into the city was horrible. I cried the entire way. The train stations were filled with flowers and every light pole was an impromtu missing per-sons bulletin board. The faces of the dead were everywhere.

Even weeks later, people put their hands on strangers shoulders at street corners and asked if they were okay. People showed ou pictures of their mothers and brothers and asked if you’d seen them. I was a zombie, and almost a full hour late to work because I inadver-tently walked past a midtown fire station and couldn’t make

myself walk away from the faces of firemen staring at me from the memorial pictures set out on the sidewalk. It got easier, but not for a long time.

We had been ready to leave the city before September 11th, but the attack definitely strength-ened my resolve. That and the nightly kitchen window progress reports that went on for six months after. It’s still smoking. It’s still smoking. Still smoking. Still. It smoked for so long. And the smell. There’s nothing like looking out over the stinking graveyard of a national tragedy every single day as you stand naked in the shower or sip your coffee. We were gone by the spring of 2002.

Now I live in the middle of Teton Valley, Idaho. Unless you count Dick Cheney or the chair-man of the IMF when they’re in Jackson on vacation, there aren’t any targets anywhere in the vicin-ity. Not that that’s why we picked this place. I think we picked it be-cause of the beauty, the pace, the people and the overriding feeling of calm those things inspire. The no terrorist targets thing is just a little bonus.

So, there. Done. Tenth an-niversary catharsis achieved. Moving on now ...

Local perspective: Real-time remembrance

Photo by Kisa Koenig

Stephen and Lisa Dyer


On the rainy night of Sept. 10, 2001, Brokaw attended a reception for a blind mountain climber. Later, the event’s orga-nizer told him that it had been rescheduled because Brokaw was unable to make the original date.

That was to have been Tuesday morn-ing, Sept. 11 — at the Windows on the World restaurant on top of the World Trade Center.

■ ■ ■

Nicole Rittenmeyer remembers scream-ing at Brokaw on Sept. 11. Not him personally. Seven months preg-nant and with a toddler under foot, she was watching the coverage in Chicago and saw the

first tower crumbling into a cloud of dust and a tangled mass of steel and concrete. Brokaw didn’t see it as quickly, and perhaps Ritten-meyer figured yelling at the TV set might get his attention.


❛ 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’s seen that collapse countless times since. Starting with the “Inside 9/11” documentary she made for National Geo-graphic in 2005, the filmmaker estimates she has spent five years on projects about the terrorist attacks.

“There’s a process that you go through that automatically puts up a kind of barrier, because you’re working on it,” said Rittenmey-er. “There are certain pieces of footage that make the hair on my arms stand up or bring tears every time and probably always will.”

■ ■ ■

Dan Rather had little time to think about

it when David Letterman asked him to be part of the first “Late Show” since the attacks.

The night turned out to be one of the memorable television moments of the weeks after the attacks. The idea of resuming life had become a delicate issue in itself, with

events such as the resumption of Major League baseball and a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden important milestones in that journey.

The tone was particularly important for a New York-based comedy show and Letterman nailed it with the raw anger of his opening monologue.

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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September 11 I The Day the World ChangedPage 8 I Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011 September 11 The Day the World ChangedSunday, Sept. 11, 2011Page 10

JOYCE [email protected]

ST. ANTHONY — Randy Raichart’s most vivid and powerful memories of Sept. 11, 2001, are sensory.

“Hearing and seeing the plane, the women in the office screaming, watching the south tower fall,” he recalls without taking a breath.

He remembers seeing people waving white fabric from the restaurant on top of the north twin tower.

“We couldn’t figure it out; why were they waving? Why didn’t they escape?” he says, knowing now they were doomed.

There was a lot of confusion in those first few minutes, he says.

At his office on the 14th floor of a build-ing on Worth Street, eight blocks from the World Trade Center that day, “first we were told to wait, then to evacuate, then to wait,” he says.

The day after the tragedy in the phone interview, Raichart told then Standard Jour-nal Publisher Rich Ballou he thought the first plane was a fighter jet f lying low to the ground when he heard what he thought was a sonic blast. He looked out the window to see a huge hole in one of the twin towers.

About a ha l f hour later, he heard the sec-ond plane. Though he couldn’t see it hit the second tower, he saw the huge f ireball when it crashed into the build-ing, and then both tow-ers c r u mbled t o the ground.

“ I fe lt the g rou nd shake,” he told Ballou.

He says the memory he would most like to for-get from that day is the sight of people jumping in desperation from the buildings.

The memory he most likes to remember is the feeling among his co-workers and others of mutual support and concern.

Raichart is a Blackfoot native. His wife Joanne’s family is from Driggs. He was visit-ing family in the upper valley in late August when he agreed to talk about what he saw and felt shortly after he arrived at work the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 in New York City.

The support and concern he recalls from that time includes his co-worker “adopting” him and taking him home to New Jersey. Raichart lived in an apartment building in the financial district — walking each day to work through the trade center area. On Sept. 11 he had left his wallet, with his iden-tification and money, in his apartment.

Because of the location of his apartment, he couldn’t get home that day. And it would be some time before he could get back.

Ten years later, much has changed and much has stayed the same for Raichart. He still walks in the ground zero area to work each day for the same agency, the New York Teachers Retirement System.

That agency has moved from the building on Worth Street to one on Canal Street not

too far away.He and his wife have moved from the

apartment in Battery Park City a couple of blocks from the ground zero to a home north

of the city.Neither move was the result

of the tragedy of 9-11, he says. The agency’s move was in the works before, and the apart-ment move was unrelated.

“We didn’t run away,” he says.

T he t ragedy su rely has affected him and his family, but in more subtle than traumatic ways.

“I don’t dwell on where I walk every day,” he says. But the events of the day did take time to shake.

He lived in Battery Park for some time before the fires were out in the rubble of the trade center. He said for five or six years after, he would be walk-ing in downtown New York and catch a whiff of the acrid smell of those smoke fumes.

Witness to tragedy looks back at 9/11

AP Photo/Jim Collins

Collapse: The south tower starts to collapse as smoke billows from both buildings of the World Trade Center in New York.

Special to the Standard Journal

Witness: Randy Raichart.

❛ Hearing and seeing the plane, the women in the office screaming, watching the south tower fall, ❜ he recalls without taking a breath.

— Randy RaichaRt, witness to the tRade centeR attacks.


Local perspective: From the shipEzra PEtErsVictor

10 years ago, I was active duty military stationed in San Di-ego, Calif. I remember standing on the pier tending to mooring lines and fiber optic cables that ran to onto our ship. Shortly be-fore 7 a.m. PST, my executive offi-cer came darting down the pier instructing all personnel to get back onboard ship immediately. I initially thought the ship’s crew was about to get a stern lecture from the commanding officer over personal responsibilities, but when we turned the television on in our workspace the images from the news reports left me and my fellow sailors and Marines with a

wretched and sickly feeling in our stomachs.

I remember trying to comfort

the individuals who were from New York City as they scrambled to try to contact their friends and families. The focal point of the news was on the World Trade Center, but we soon discovered that the Pentagon had been struck as well. What made it more sickening was the fact that the wing of the Pentagon that had been struck was the communications wing, which was the rating or job that I was assigned. What made it worse for the service members who were from the NYC area was the fact that our entire command as well as the base went into complete lockdown. No one was allowed to leave our ship, let alone the base. We spent the next 72 hours on-

board as we stepped up pier and waterfront security and drilled for security breaches.

My personal feelings were that of being numb, disillusioned, and angry. I had these same feel-ing on my first western Pacific deployment in 2000, when our command was summoned to as-sist in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the USS Cole in October of 2000. We spent over two months in the port of Aden, Yemen. The only difference was the fact that I was a first-person witness to the aftermath of the bombing, and I wanted nothing more to partake in a full-scale assault and takeover of that loathsome country. That’s what I remember.

Ezra Peters

DavE FassnachtTetona/Idaho Falls

As an expatriate American living in Singapore, I was far-removed from the day-to-day news in the United States. Instead of Fox News, I watched local Singapore-based channels. Instead of football and baseball, I watched soccer and Aussie-rules football. Interestingly, while I was living surrounded by countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, who are heavily populated with devout believers of Islam, I felt totally safe. Until 9/11.

After a typical hot and steamy day in Sin-gapore, my good friend Narinder and I decided to have a drink at a local pub. People were smiling, laughing, playing pool and socializing. Narinder and I were engaged in a friendly game of darts and bantering back and forth when I glimpsed one of the World Trade Center towers on the television. The music was loud, I could not hear the television, and life was continuing as it normally does in this small Singapore pub. What I didn’t notice the first time I saw the tower was that it was damaged and had smoke pouring out of it. We continued to play darts. A few minutes later, I looked back at the television at what we all know now as a terrorist-driven nightmare in the making. The first tower was going to go down and the second was about to be hit. I said to my friend, “World War III is beginning — let’s take a break and watch this.”

And so we did. We watched as the towers were hit and as they fell. We watched in horror

as innocent people of all races and creeds were uselessly murdered and as some took their own lives by leap-ing out of the burning towers. I will never forget the faces of those who looked on as their loved ones were trapped in the burning buildings.

There is a feeling of safety that we enjoy as Americans living in our country. For me that feeling of safety comes from the strength of our na-tion and from our military. I enjoy the feeling of freedom. Freedom of speech. Freedom to exercise religion. These good feelings of freedom and safety felt as if they were removed from me in an instant as I realized what had happened and why it had happened. Suddenly, I felt very alone. Suddenly, I didn’t feel very safe. I was a 24-hour flight away from the nearest American city, surrounded by Islamic people on all sides and living in a country where personal freedom comes in the form of gifts from the government. Singaporeans are not as “free” as we are.

The next day came and went, and none of my Singaporean friends said anything to me about what had happened. I’m still not sure if it’s because they didn’t know what to say or be-cause they are so insulated living in a country that a fit person can easily run across that they didn’t really care about a couple of buildings that fell down in New York City.

But I did. I began to study what Muslims believe. I began asking many of my Muslim

friends about their opinion about what hap-pened. Every single one of these people I spoke was so nice, so peaceful, and devoutly religious — and none of them could rationalize the behavior of these terrorists.

In my own heart I suppose I have come to accept that there are religious people in this world, and then there are religious people in this world who are radical and who may actually have a screw or two loose. Those are the ones who caused this awful event. Let’s not hate Muslims for what happened. Let’s not blame religion for what happened. Let’s just re-build, try to love each other — oh, and keep watching out for those radicals with loose screws — because they’re bound to do it again someday. Let’s also give thanks to our U.S. military for all that they do. We owe our free-dom and our feelings of safety to them.

Local perspective: Overseas

September 11 The Day the World ChangedSunday, Sept. 11, 2011Page 10

JOYCE [email protected]

ST. ANTHONY — Randy Raichart’s most vivid and powerful memories of Sept. 11, 2001, are sensory.

“Hearing and seeing the plane, the women in the office screaming, watching the south tower fall,” he recalls without taking a breath.

He remembers seeing people waving white fabric from the restaurant on top of the north twin tower.

“We couldn’t figure it out; why were they waving? Why didn’t they escape?” he says, knowing now they were doomed.

There was a lot of confusion in those first few minutes, he says.

At his office on the 14th floor of a build-ing on Worth Street, eight blocks from the World Trade Center that day, “first we were told to wait, then to evacuate, then to wait,” he says.

The day after the tragedy in the phone interview, Raichart told then Standard Jour-nal Publisher Rich Ballou he thought the first plane was a fighter jet f lying low to the ground when he heard what he thought was a sonic blast. He looked out the window to see a huge hole in one of the twin towers.

About a ha l f hour later, he heard the sec-ond plane. Though he couldn’t see it hit the second tower, he saw the huge f ireball when it crashed into the build-ing, and then both tow-ers c r u mbled t o the ground.

“ I fe lt the g rou nd shake,” he told Ballou.

He says the memory he would most like to for-get from that day is the sight of people jumping in desperation from the buildings.

The memory he most likes to remember is the feeling among his co-workers and others of mutual support and concern.

Raichart is a Blackfoot native. His wife Joanne’s family is from Driggs. He was visit-ing family in the upper valley in late August when he agreed to talk about what he saw and felt shortly after he arrived at work the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 in New York City.

The support and concern he recalls from that time includes his co-worker “adopting” him and taking him home to New Jersey. Raichart lived in an apartment building in the financial district — walking each day to work through the trade center area. On Sept. 11 he had left his wallet, with his iden-tification and money, in his apartment.

Because of the location of his apartment, he couldn’t get home that day. And it would be some time before he could get back.

Ten years later, much has changed and much has stayed the same for Raichart. He still walks in the ground zero area to work each day for the same agency, the New York Teachers Retirement System.

That agency has moved from the building on Worth Street to one on Canal Street not

too far away.He and his wife have moved from the

apartment in Battery Park City a couple of blocks from the ground zero to a home north

of the city.Neither move was the result

of the tragedy of 9-11, he says. The agency’s move was in the works before, and the apart-ment move was unrelated.

“We didn’t run away,” he says.

T he t ragedy su rely has affected him and his family, but in more subtle than traumatic ways.

“I don’t dwell on where I walk every day,” he says. But the events of the day did take time to shake.

He lived in Battery Park for some time before the fires were out in the rubble of the trade center. He said for five or six years after, he would be walk-ing in downtown New York and catch a whiff of the acrid smell of those smoke fumes.

Witness to tragedy looks back at 9/11

AP Photo/Jim Collins

Collapse: The south tower starts to collapse as smoke billows from both buildings of the World Trade Center in New York.

Special to the Standard Journal

Witness: Randy Raichart.

❛ Hearing and seeing the plane, the women in the office screaming, watching the south tower fall, ❜ he recalls without taking a breath.

— Randy RaichaRt, witness to the tRade centeR attacks.

Photo courtesy Dave FassnachtDave Fassnacht, left, with friends in Signapore.


During 9/11 coverage, Rather worked hard to keep his emotions in check while on the air for CBS News. It was a grueling stretch that had the veteran anchor, then age 69, awake for 48 hours at one point. But with Letterman, Rather briefly

broke down in tears twice. “I was just engulfed, consumed by grief,” he said. “I’ve never apologized for that — didn’t then and I don’t now. Because, one doesn’t apologize for grief.”

■ ■ ■

On Sept. 11, 2001, Nathaniel Katz, who grew up in New Jersey,

was about as far away from New York as you can get: studying in the Aus-tralian capital of Canberra. A friend brought him to a student lounge so he could watch “The West Wing” for the first time. The series was interrupted to show what Katz thought was a pri-vate plane crashing into the trade cen-ter. He watched as other images filled

the screen. About 30 other people qui-etly streamed into the lounge behind Katz, the only American.

To the others in the lounge, it seemed like a Hollywood movie. To Katz, it was home. He broke down and cried uncontrollably.

The first tangible losses beyond death were obvious, and massive. The Cantor Fitzgerald brokerage, where more than 650 employees were killed, owned a trove of drawings and sculptures that included a cast of Rodin’s “The Thinker” — which resur-faced briefly after the attacks before mysteriously disappearing again. Fragments of other sculptures also were recovered.

Trading back to the 1840s The Ferdinand Gallozzi Library of U.S. Customs Service in 6 World Trade Center held a collection of docu-ments related to U.S. trade dating back to at least the 1840s. And in the same building were nearly 900,000 objects excavated from the Five Points neighborhood of lower Manhattan, a famous working-class slum of the 19th century. The Kennedy negatives, by pho-tographer Jacques Lowe, had been stowed away in a fireproof vault at 5 World Trade Center, a nine-story

building in the complex. Helen Keller International, whose offices burned up when its building, a block from the trade center, was struck by debris, lost a modest archive. Only two books and a bust of Keller survived. Classified and confidential docu-ments also disappeared at the Penta-gon, where American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into it on 9/11.

Afghanistan war A private disaster response com-pany, BMS CAT, was hired to help recover materials in the library, where the jet plane’s nose came to rest. The company claimed it saved all but 100 volumes. But the recovery limited access to information related to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, as the U.S. prepared to launch an attack a month later. In New York, CIA and Secret Ser-vice personnel sifted through debris carted from the trade center to a Stat-en Island landfill for lost documents, hard drives with classified informa-tion and intelligence reports. The CIA declined to comment.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Sept. 11 attacks transformed the Pentagon, ravaging the iconic build-ing itself and setting the stage for two long and cost-ly wars that reordered the way the American military fights. Compared with a decade ago, 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, commit-ting suicide at an alarming rate and training less for conventional warfare.

Recovery time The partly gutted Pen-tagon was restored with remarkable speed after the hijacked American Air-lines Boeing 757 slammed through its west side, set-ting the building ablaze and killing 184 people. But recovering from the strain of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan will take far longer — possibly decades. The Pentagon’s leaders will have to adjust to a new era of austerity after a decade in which the defense budget doubled, to nearly $700 billion this year. The Army and Marine

Corps in particular — both still heavily engaged in Afghanistan — will strug-gle to retrain, rearm and reinvigorate their badly stretched forces even as budgets begin to shrink. And the troops themselves face an uncertain future; many are scarred by the mental strains of battle, and some face transition to civilian life at a time of economic turmoil and high unemployment. The cost of veterans’ care will march higher. Terrorism was not a new challenge in 2001, but the scale of the 9/11 attacks prompted a shift in the U.S. mindset from defense to offense. The U.S. invad-ed Afghanistan on Oct. 7 in an unconventional military campaign that was coordi-nated with the CIA.


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



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“I pride myself on having a fair bit of self-control and I completely lost myself in this situation,” said Katz, now a ministry fellow at Harvard University. “I could feel all these eyeballs in the back of my head. But I didn’t care.”

■ ■ ■

Ashleigh Banfield was working at MSNBC that day, and disregarded a sugges-tion that she go to the network’s New Jersey headquarters. Instead, she headed downtown in a cab as far as it would take her and then on foot. Banfield was close enough to be enveloped in the black cloud created as the second tower collapsed. A companion kicked

in a nearby building’s door and she sought refuge with a police officer who also was looking for a safe place to breathe. She emerged when the cloud began to lift and flagged down a nearby NBC truck that could film her as she gave reports into a cell phone.

“For whatever reason, I thought all of

the buildings were coming down,” she said. “If these two were coming down, what was next? I was so scared. So many people said you were

so brave to do that reporting that day and I think just the opposite. I was just so childishly scared.”

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.

FAMILIES

cLAS

Sroo

MS

SkIES

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

That heralded one of the most profound effects of 9/11: a shift in the military’s emphasis from fight-ing conventional army-on-army battles to executing more secretive, intelligence-driven hunts for shad-owy terrorists. Still in debate is how the Taliban, which had shielded Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida figures prior to the U.S. inva-sion and was driven from Kabul within weeks, managed to make a comeback in the years after the U.S. shifted its main focus to Iraq in 2003. That setback in Afghanistan, coupled with the longer-than-expected fight in Iraq, showed the limits of

post-9/11 U.S. mili-tary power. In percentage terms, the biggest growth in the mili-tary has been in the secretive, elite units known as special operations forces. They surged to the forefront of the U.S. military’s counter-terror campaign almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks, helping rout the Taliban in late 2001 and culminating in May 2011 with the Navy SEAL team’s raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. And even though al-Qaida’s global reach has been diminished, the increased role of spe-cial operations forces is likely to continue.


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) How do teachers handle the daunting task of trying to explain the significance of 9/11 to students who don’t remember when anyone could walk right up to the gate at the airport or when Osama bin Laden wasn’t a household name?

The answer isn’t simple, and it has changed over time as the country’s rhetoric about the attacks has evolved.

Students across the country will gather for assemblies, hold moments of silence and spend history and social studies classes focusing on Sept. 11 this year.

(AP) — For most of us, the romance of flight is long gone — lost to Sept. 11, 2001, and hard-set memories of jets crashing into buildings.

We remember what it was like before. Keeping all our clothes on at security. Get-ting hot meals for free — even if we com-plained about the taste. Leg room.

Today, we feel beaten down even before reaching our seats. Shoes must be removed and all but the tiniest amounts of liquids surrendered at security checkpoints. Loved ones can no longer kiss passengers goodbye

(AP) — David Rand cheerfully acknowl-edges he’s an overprotective father. An ex-Marine who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, he’s also a single dad to 5-year-old Emma.

And so when Emma’s grandmother sug-gested recently that the girl come visit her in Texas, flying from California as an unac-companied minor, Rand had a blunt reac-tion: “Heck, no!”

He cites Sept. 11 as part of the reason. “The images just go through your mind,” he says. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something terrible happened and I wasn’t



12

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12

1210


■ ■ ■

Knowing the location of his wife Katherine’s office and the trajectory of the first plane to hit the World Trade Center, Charles Wolf eventually became convinced she was killed instantly on

Sept. 11. He never heard from her that morning.

For most people, television that day was a way to experience a terrible story that did not yet involve them. For Wolf, it was a lifeline. TV is where he got his information, learning areas that were set up for possible survivors or places to find

out about victims.

“You’re looking for shreds of evidence of whether she’s alive or dead,” he said.

He watched the coverage for hours, even though deep down he knew Kath-erine’s fate when he saw the north tower collapse. What grew excruciating was when

networks played key footage over and over, particularly of the second plane hit-ting the south tower. He has no interest in watching 10th anniversary coverage, which he calls “made-for-ratings televi-sion.” Instead, he will attend a public memorial at ground zero.

— 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.



11 11

11

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Iconic images — Sept. 11, 2001

By The Associated Press

People look at some news photos shot on Sept. 11, 2001, and wonder how those who took them could bear to keep working in the face of such tragedy. Five whose images of that day became iconic discussed how the photos came about and how their lenses helped shield them from what would come later.

■ Marty Lederhandler After 65 years with the AP, Marty Lederhandler had pretty much seen and done it all. In 1937, a year after joining the wire service, 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,” he said. Lederhandler retired three months later. He died last year at 92.

■ Richard Drew As a 21-year-old shooter for the Pasadena Independent-Star News, Richard Drew was at the Ambassador Hotel in

Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, where Robert Kennedy, fresh from winning the California Democratic presidential primary, was shot. Drew was one of only four photographers to capture Kennedy’s last moments. On Sept. 11, Drew was on assignment, when his cell phone rang. “A plane’s hit the World Trade Center,” photo editor Barbara Woike said. Drew rushed to the subway and took the No. 2 train to Chambers Street. He took up a position near a line of ambulances to wait for casualties when suddenly a paramedic shouted, “Look! There’s people coming out of the World Trade Center.” But she wasn’t pointing down the street. She was pointing up. “I just sort of clicked into automatic pilot,” Drew recalled, “and started taking pictures of the people falling out of the building.”

■ Doug Mills Photographer Doug Mills was covering President George W. Bush on the road on Sept. 11. The day’s first event — a visit with kids at Emma E. Booker Elemen-

tary School — proved anything but typical.

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

14

September 11 I The Day the World ChangedPage 14 I Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011 September 11 The Day the World Changed Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011 Page 13

RACHEL [email protected]

The devastating terrorist attacks on the New York twin towers on September 11, 2001, engraved themselves on one 16-year-old boy’s mind, giving him the impetus to put his own life on hold and protect his country from future threats to U.S. liberty.

Sgt. Jim Holtom, 22, was one of three Idaho Army Reservist soldiers killed with another one severely wounded in an attack in Iraq back in February 2007. These sol-diers were on a mission to recover bodies that were shot down in a Blackhawk heli-copter in Iraq’s Al Anbar province west of Baghdad. Holtom’s mother, Reyne, said he never told her this, but his tank was the 1st in line to drive the dangerous roads at 1-2 miles per hour speeds in this recov-ery mission. His tank was the victim of a remote detonation of a 400lb missile bur-ied under the road. Holtom left his par-ents, six brothers and two sisters that day.

Holtom was serving as a sergeant and tank commander during his 3 1/2 years of service in the Army. Holtom’s command-ing officer said his rank was unique, too.

Holt om wa s t he youngest soldier to become a sergeant in his platoon. This major responsibil-ity given at such a young age denotes the dedicated, noble life Holtom lead pre-vious to his military career.

Reyne says while h e r f a m i ly wa s watching the chaos of the September 11 attacks on their TV, she looked into Holtom’s eyes and saw a determination that never did leave his eyes. Although Holtom was only 16-years-old, he decided he was going to do something about these attacks. When Holtom was ready to join the military, Reyne and his father David were curious as to his motivation. Holtom said the money wasn’t the reason as they suggested, but that he had a sense of duty that was too strong to deny. Holtom told his parents he was ready to go to Iraq, and that he knew this as soon as the twin tow-ers fell years previous.

One memorable conversation Holtom had with his family changed the way they viewed the American military. He explained to them of the difference the soldiers had made since first arriving in their area in Iraq. He said when the sol-diers first arrived, most of the people l iving there were home-bound because it was too danger-ous to walk outside. Holtom was anxious to inform his family that he saw a moth-er with her family walking to the market that day, and he was proud of the American military for bringing increased safety to the people. The soldiers also brought water treatment facilities and school facilities to the people.

Holtom was a strong leader as a tank commander over his rapidly changing crews, but Reyne says he had always been a leader.

“He had a quiet confidence that people followed, and people looked up to him,” said Reyne.

Reyne remembers when Holtom was a young child, he’d spend time creating adventures and challenges for his seven younger siblings. And all the siblings would do whatever Holtom asked because of the trust he’d built with them.

Holtom was a sophomore at Boise State University majoring in engineering when he was deployed in Iraq. He was shar-ing an apartment with his brother Ben at the time, and working a construction job with him. Ben definitely remembers the organized and time-oriented manners of Holtom. Ben would wake up in the morn-ings to Holtom saying “Come on Ben, I have your stuff,” and urging him to be prompt to work. Holtom would have Ben’s lunch, coat and tools ready by the time Ben awoke.

“ That ’s the way he was,” said Reyne. “He just took care of things.”

The Holtom f a m i ly s i nc e dedicates their lives to loving a n d r e m e m -

bering Jim Holtom’s sacrifice for freedom of all people within the United States of America. The family attends a formal vet-erans ceremony at his grave site in Eagle, Idaho, every Memorial Day. The family carries a gold star on their license plates, his mother still makes his favorite des-sert on his birthday, and three babies have been named after him.

“We remember him always,” said Reyne. “I can’t help but be proud that he grew up to be such an honorable young man.”

Twenty-two and willing to give up everything for

his country

Courtesy Photo

Selfless: Jim Holtom, a Madison High School senior and later tank commander in the Army Reserves, gave his life for the country he loved after serving 3 1/2 years.

Mike Vogt/Idaho Press-Tribune

Honoring: General Lawrence Johnson, top right, hands James Holtom’s parents, David and Reyne, with another flag during the com-mittal service at the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery on Tuesday after-noon. Holtom was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

❛ He had a quiet confidence that people

followed, and people looked up to him. ❜— Reyne Holtom, motHeR

September 11 The Day the World ChangedPage 22 Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011

About five minutes into the visit at the school, the classroom door opened, and White House chief of staff Andy Card stepped inside. Mills’ antennae immediately went up: Card almost never attended events like this. After a few moments, Card walked to the front of the room, leaned in and whispered something into Bush’s right ear. The president’s face went blank.■ Amy Sancetta Ohio-based AP national photogra-pher Amy Sancetta caught a cab and rode down Broadway until a police bar-ricade stopped her from going farther. By then, the second tower was already smoking. She got out her 80-200 mm zoom lens and began scanning the rows of windows of the south tower for faces. Suddenly, she heard a thunderous rumbling. She watched through her lens as the tower’s top “kind of cracked and started to fall in on itself.” She could squeeze off only about a half-dozen frames before the tower disappeared. People were rushing past, buffeting her as they ran pell-mell from the rising debris cloud. She ran about half a block, then turned into a parking garage — just as the cloud whooshed past. When she finally emerged, she stepped into what looked like a “win-ter wonderland of debris.” She began picking her way back toward the trade center, shooting as she went. When she heard a second rumble, she lowered her camera and ran. At last, she reached the office and was able to see what she had: the beginning of the south tower’s end.

■ Gulnara Samoilova Gulnara Samoilova’s apartment was just four blocks from the World Trade Center. She grabbed her camera and a handful

of film, and headed into the street. Entering the south tower, she quickly decided the scene was too cha-otic to shoot, and retreated. Back out-side, she was standing right beneath the south tower when it began to crumble. She got off one more shot before someone nearby screamed, “RUN!” The force of the collapse “was like a mini-earthquake,” knocking her off her feet. People began trampling her. “I was afraid I would die right there,” the 46-year-old photographer says. She got up just as the cloud was about to envelop her. She dove behind a car and crouched. “It was very dark and silent,” she says. “I thought I was buried alive.”

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

13

September 11 I The Day the World Changed Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011 I Page 15September 11 The Day the World Changed Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011 Page 13

RACHEL [email protected]

The devastating terrorist attacks on the New York twin towers on September 11, 2001, engraved themselves on one 16-year-old boy’s mind, giving him the impetus to put his own life on hold and protect his country from future threats to U.S. liberty.

Sgt. Jim Holtom, 22, was one of three Idaho Army Reservist soldiers killed with another one severely wounded in an attack in Iraq back in February 2007. These sol-diers were on a mission to recover bodies that were shot down in a Blackhawk heli-copter in Iraq’s Al Anbar province west of Baghdad. Holtom’s mother, Reyne, said he never told her this, but his tank was the 1st in line to drive the dangerous roads at 1-2 miles per hour speeds in this recov-ery mission. His tank was the victim of a remote detonation of a 400lb missile bur-ied under the road. Holtom left his par-ents, six brothers and two sisters that day.

Holtom was serving as a sergeant and tank commander during his 3 1/2 years of service in the Army. Holtom’s command-ing officer said his rank was unique, too.

Holt om wa s t he youngest soldier to become a sergeant in his platoon. This major responsibil-ity given at such a young age denotes the dedicated, noble life Holtom lead pre-vious to his military career.

Reyne says while h e r f a m i ly wa s watching the chaos of the September 11 attacks on their TV, she looked into Holtom’s eyes and saw a determination that never did leave his eyes. Although Holtom was only 16-years-old, he decided he was going to do something about these attacks. When Holtom was ready to join the military, Reyne and his father David were curious as to his motivation. Holtom said the money wasn’t the reason as they suggested, but that he had a sense of duty that was too strong to deny. Holtom told his parents he was ready to go to Iraq, and that he knew this as soon as the twin tow-ers fell years previous.

One memorable conversation Holtom had with his family changed the way they viewed the American military. He explained to them of the difference the soldiers had made since first arriving in their area in Iraq. He said when the sol-diers first arrived, most of the people l iving there were home-bound because it was too danger-ous to walk outside. Holtom was anxious to inform his family that he saw a moth-er with her family walking to the market that day, and he was proud of the American military for bringing increased safety to the people. The soldiers also brought water treatment facilities and school facilities to the people.

Holtom was a strong leader as a tank commander over his rapidly changing crews, but Reyne says he had always been a leader.

“He had a quiet confidence that people followed, and people looked up to him,” said Reyne.

Reyne remembers when Holtom was a young child, he’d spend time creating adventures and challenges for his seven younger siblings. And all the siblings would do whatever Holtom asked because of the trust he’d built with them.

Holtom was a sophomore at Boise State University majoring in engineering when he was deployed in Iraq. He was shar-ing an apartment with his brother Ben at the time, and working a construction job with him. Ben definitely remembers the organized and time-oriented manners of Holtom. Ben would wake up in the morn-ings to Holtom saying “Come on Ben, I have your stuff,” and urging him to be prompt to work. Holtom would have Ben’s lunch, coat and tools ready by the time Ben awoke.

“ That ’s the way he was,” said Reyne. “He just took care of things.”

The Holtom f a m i ly s i nc e dedicates their lives to loving a n d r e m e m -

bering Jim Holtom’s sacrifice for freedom of all people within the United States of America. The family attends a formal vet-erans ceremony at his grave site in Eagle, Idaho, every Memorial Day. The family carries a gold star on their license plates, his mother still makes his favorite des-sert on his birthday, and three babies have been named after him.

“We remember him always,” said Reyne. “I can’t help but be proud that he grew up to be such an honorable young man.”

Twenty-two and willing to give up everything for

his country

Courtesy Photo

Selfless: Jim Holtom, a Madison High School senior and later tank commander in the Army Reserves, gave his life for the country he loved after serving 3 1/2 years.

Mike Vogt/Idaho Press-Tribune

Honoring: General Lawrence Johnson, top right, hands James Holtom’s parents, David and Reyne, with another flag during the com-mittal service at the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery on Tuesday after-noon. Holtom was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

❛ He had a quiet confidence that people

followed, and people looked up to him. ❜— Reyne Holtom, motHeR

September 11 I The Day the World ChangedPage 16 I Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011

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