Remembering Sept. 11

A Different ‘Day of Infamy’

By Ken Jeffries/NWACC Eagle View

FORT SMITH, Ark. — The professional window cleaner held the glass door open for a client exiting an insurance office. It was still somewhat early in the day, but he could see through the glass that two other clients were sitting in the lobby, waiting their turn to talk with one of the two agents seated at their desks. He had already cleaned the outsides of the office windows. He only needed to clean the outside of the door glass before going in to clean the inside surfaces.

He did so quickly, using the serpentine motion with his squeegee that only a professional window cleaner can execute. He quickly wiped the edges of the glass with his blue, lint-free surgical towel, refilled his Bucket-on-a-Belt with clean water, and dunked his window mop into it to cause any excess water to spill on the outside ground, instead of inside the office.

Entering the office, he noticed that mounted high in the far left corner, a 21-inch TV was tuned to the news on NBC. The sound was muted. The television was showing a live-action shot of the twin World Trade Center towers, and one of the towers had flames and smoke billowing from several floors near the top of the building. Wondering what was happening, he became riveted to the drama unfolding on the screen. It seemed he was the only one who noticed. The agents were busy with their clients, and the waiting clients were engrossed in magazines.

A visual timeline of the 9/11 attacks. Graphic courtesy of VisualCapitalist.com

GONZALES, La. — A school-lunch cafeteria worker was busy alongside her co-workers preparing to feed 450 rowdy, ravenous elementary students at lunch that day. The school’s principal called all the workers into the gymnasium, saying, “Y’all come see this! You gotta see this!”

When she arrived in the gym, one of the audio-visual carts was set up with a television tuned to the same grisly newscast. She, her co-workers, several students and teachers, and the principal all watched as the second plane hit the south tower. An astonished hush came over the room.

Graphic courtesy of VisualCapitalist.com

PITTSBURGH, Penn. — A housewife was doing “regular housework” when a neighbor called. By the time her television came on, the second plane had hit. She was struck by the horror, and contemplated the impact it would have on those affected by this heinous act of barbarism. She needed time to reflect. She turned off the “boob-tube” and went outside. She remembers thinking that everything seemed normal outside, but she knew the world had changed forever.

Patricia Franz said, “My brain was trying to absorb what was happening. It was like a movie, but since it was real, the brain just can’t absorb it. Not until the news-people started talking could you begin to absorb it. That’s why I went out to the porch — it was so surreal.”

When asked, “How did it affect your daily routine after that?” Jewell Beck, the cafeteria worker, replied, “I just kept thinking how dangerous life is. We think we’re safe, but we’re not always as safe as we might think. They hated us for our way of life. They didn’t like the way we cared about people and our freedom.”

Upon further reflection, she added, “It left me feeling really sad and in shock. I thought of all the families who lost loved ones — how lost and scared they must have been. What happened has affected their whole lives. [We need to be] constantly reminded of how valuable our way of life is here in America. It used to be peaceful; now it’s all in chaos and we’re unsure of the future.”

This author was that window cleaner. I couldn’t believe this could be happening on American soil. We were the land of the free and the home of the brave, after all. How dare these — to use their terminology — infidels attack the nation that God has given every advantage and granted such peace and security? How did our national security apparatus not know something like this was coming?

As I watched the second plane hit the south tower, I let out a slow, incredulous, unbelieving “Whoa-oa-oa” and everyone in the office took notice of what was on the television. I know I was in that office for over an hour finishing what should have been a 15-minute job. The agents, the clients and I became brothers and sisters in history. We didn’t really know one another, but we experienced that day together. Like Franz said, we were forever changed.

For Beck, the events of Sept. 11 have led to focus more on prayer. “I pray more,” she said. “I pray more deeply. I really pray for people to realize how valuable life is.”

Asked how it has changed the nation, she said, “In one way, it brought people together a little more. It made them more aware of helping one another.”

She also recalls a sense of unity that seemed apparent in the days immediately after Sept. 11. “It brought out some more unselfish ways of helping others and how we need to be more united for a great cause,” she said. “[But now we have] drifted back to a callous mindset; people have become more selfish. They’ve lost their worth. Some have just given up on the country. They’ve lost courage, drive, determination for a better purpose.”

Beck sees a need for similar unity now. “Being united as a country or a family will hold the country together more,” she said. “Working alone you can’t accomplish anything. That’s why you need unity.”

Abraham Lincoln said, “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”

Are we, as a nation, wiser than we were before Sept. 11, 2001? We have given away so many of our rights, and so much of our liberty and privacy to make us “a little more secure.” Has doing so, done so?

Benjamin Franklin is quoted as writing, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

The question of what the actions of our nation have done in this regard since America’s 9/11 is the subject of another article.

Truly, September 11, 2001 was — like the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 — a day of infamy that will live in world history for all time.

Ken Jeffries is a member of the NWACC Eagle View staff and a student in the fall 2022 Fundamentals of Journalism class. As he notes in the blog post, he was working as a window washer at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks.