9/11: a day no one has forgotten

Twenty years ago—Sept. 11, 2001—on what should have been a normal, beautiful morning with sunshine and blue skies, the lives of millions of Americans changed forever.
The U.S. was viciously attacked and the security Americans had once enjoyed was shaken to its foundation.
Most anyone who was old enough to have experienced that day in history can tell you where they were and what they were doing when the first plane hit the towers.
Two commercial airliners struck each of the World Trade Center Twin Towers followed by a third plane flown into the Pentagon.
Not long after, the fourth plane, Flight 93, crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania as passengers, in an act of extraordinary heroism, stopped terrorists from flying the plane into their last U.S. target.
It will be 20 years Saturday since this attack, and many will be revisiting those memories.
Five individuals from the community shared their memories of that day—not without some tears.
I’ll never forget
Joel Burke was watching the morning news when the first plane hit the towers.
His son, Jake, an eighth grader at the time, was still asleep.
“I got Jake up to watch the news saying, ‘Something’s going on’,” said Burke.
He said they sat watching the news together, witnessing the second plane hit the towers saying again more urgently, “What’s going on?”
Burke said Jake was in shock and didn’t understand what he was witnessing.
“I remember thinking how strange it was that Air Force One, carrying President Bush, landed in Omaha,” said Burke.
Angie Paisley was on her way to work at the school.
“I heard on the car radio that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers,” she said.
When the second plane hit, she said she had two thoughts.
“First, I thought about my dad when he was in WWII. I knew we (as a country) weren’t going to tolerate it, and I knew there would be retaliation—maybe even another world war,” Paisley said.
Secondly, she wondered if her sons could be called up in  case there was another draft.
Taya Northrup was living in Colorado at the time and worked for a rural school district.
She was also driving to work when she heard the news on the radio.
“When the first plane hit, I wasn’t sure what was happening. I had no clue,” Northrup said.
When she arrived at school, TVs were on everywhere, and she knew it wasn’t just an accident.
“I called my mom right away because we had family in New York City and a cousin in upstate New York who was a doctor,” she said.
She found out later from her cousin that their hospital was inundated with victims.
“I remember staying up all night watching TV, and feeling shock that someone would invade our country,” said Northrup.
“I couldn’t fathom the magnitude of it having come from a small town (Wauneta),” she added.
She said school classes were canceled many places and most evening sporting events as well, but their school decided to go ahead with a scheduled volleyball game that night.
“We wanted to all be together and maintain some kind of normalcy,” Northrup said.
At the start of the game, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” was played, and there were a lot of tears, she said.
“I can’t believe it’s been 20 years because it seems like yesterday,” she continued.         “Another thing I remember is the patriotism of the whole country and how we all came together—I miss it.”
These memories are relatable to many people who began a normal day only to be broadsided by news that was not normal at all.
In the thick of it
Two people who were closer to the events than most that day were Jeff and Cindy Castor of Imperial.
Jeff worked at Denver International Airport and was working on the B-concourse at gate 43, he remembers.
“I was loading United Airlines Flight 267, a wide-body going to Los Angeles International Airport, when I got a phone call saying a plane flew into a building in New York,” he said.
He thought it would be a small Cessna or helicopter that hit a building.
It wasn’t until Jeff went into the “ready room” (break room) that he and others saw the second plane hit on TV.
Planes were still landing at DIA and people getting off, but the planes were left where they stopped and stairs were brought to them, Jeff said.
“It was a long process unloading passengers this way, and the planes were just parked everywhere like a parking lot,” he said.
The next day, there was an eerie silence at DIA, and the airport was not ever the same, he added.
Cindy Castor was a flight attendant for United Airlines at DIA at the time.
She said she had just returned on a flight the day before and was on her day off that fateful morning.
“I was having a normal morning rushing around to get the kids up for school when Jeff called and said to turn on the news,” she said.
A plane with a blue tail had hit the trade center, and she knew it was a United Airlines plane.
“I fell on my knees and said, ‘Lord, I don’t know what’s going on’ and prayed for the people, crew members and families,” said Cindy.
Many schools canceled classes, she said, but her kids went to a Christian school which didn’t cancel.
“I felt they would be better off at school than with me, because I was so frightened for my flight attendant friends and pilots,” she said.
Flight attendants and pilots who work for airlines are all like family, Cindy said.
“I knew well one of the flight attendants and a pilot, Jason Dahl, who were on the planes that crashed. I had just been visiting with Jason’s wife the day before,” she said.
After dropping the kids at school, Cindy went home and stayed glued to the TV, she said.
“Friends and family began calling me, and the sweetest words I heard were, ‘I just wanted to hear your voice,’ ” she said through tears.
The next day she started making phone calls to check on families of crew.
 She said 25 flight attendants died that day (9/11), so it hit close to home.
“I flew again on Sept. 14, and nothing was the same. There were guards all over the airport with M16s, and trash cans were all turned upside down—it was so strange,” she said.
The day America
lost its innocence
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum was established and family members of 9/11 victims gather annually on the Memorial plaza to read aloud the names of those killed in the 9/11 attacks and in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
A press release from National Archives said, “Twenty years have passed since the attacks on September 11, 2001, an event that would devastate a nation and change the course of history forever.
Even amidst unparalleled destruction and violence, the days after 9/11 showed the incredible strength, resilience, and courage of the American people.”