The Only Plane in the Sky

by Garrett M Graff

  AGE 3

  Beau Garner, Michigan: My only memory is my mom standing in front of the TV watching the news. I don’t remember seeing the Towers fall or seeing President Bush address the nation. The only thing I remember is how it affected my mother. The significance of the moment was somehow passed on to me regardless of my lack of comprehension; 9/11 was not just an early memory for me, it’s my earliest memory. Just a flash.

  AGE 5 / KINDERGARTEN

  Lachlan Francis, Vermont: 9/11 is the first memory of my life. I remember a clearly distraught Mrs. Blanchard telling us that we would be going home early for the day. My daycare provider picked me and other students up in her minivan and brought us back to her house. This was the only day of daycare that we were ever allowed to watch television. My daycare provider watched the film of planes crashing into the Towers on loop as she frantically tried to call her daughter, who lived in Manhattan. The other students and I, clueless to the seriousness and tragedy of what we were watching, nonetheless sat transfixed in front of the couch, watching the video of planes crashing into the Twin Towers over and over and over again.

  Blake Richardson, Connecticut: My mom said as soon as she saw on the news that the first plane crashed, she drove to school to pick up my siblings and me. Later, she explained to me that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center, and I had absolutely no idea what that meant. The next morning, I sat down in a circle on the rug with my kindergarten class, and we all talked about what happened. I remember being confused because my mom said “the World Trade Center” and my teacher said “the Twin Towers,” and I thought they were two separate buildings. I didn’t know about the other planes until maybe a year or so later. Now, I can’t imagine how terrifying that must’ve been for my teacher—to have to explain something so horrific to a room full of five-year-olds.

  Jing Qu, Illinois: My mom worked at one of the high-rise buildings closest to the Sears Tower in Chicago. The school got the students home early, but I did not know why at the time. I remember my mom was home earlier than usual, too. She gave me a bath and asked me, “Do you know what happened?” She then told me that there was a horrible accident at the World Trade Center in New York City, a place we had visited a few months before. Terrorism and patriotism were not yet ideas that I understood. My mother, along with all the other workers in the tallest buildings in Chicago, were asked to evacuate.

  AGE 6 / FIRST GRADE

  Kelly Yeo, California: The sky was gray as my babysitter woke me up and told me, “You’re not going to school today. There’s going to be a war. Bad men have bombed New York City.”

  Rikki Miller, Michigan: I was in Mrs. Smith’s first-grade class. We had a guest reader in the class reading Nate the Great. Mrs. Smith got a call. Slowly, students were called out of class. By the end of the day, only a few of us were left—my sister, a second-grader, and myself among them. When we got home, [my mom] told us about a terrible attack that took many lives. My mom didn’t want us to be scared of school, so she wasn’t going to pull us out.

  Alma M., California: All the adults seemed weird. They were all on edge and something was wrong, everything was so quiet.

  AGE 7 / SECOND GRADE

  Robert Korn, Florida: Kids started leaving school early, picked up by their parents starting around 10:00 a.m. My mom picked me and my best friend up from our school. My mom was crying. She and my dad had both grown up on Long Island, and they lived in Manhattan together for over a decade before moving to Florida. When we got home, my dad made a couple sandwiches for my friend and me. He was a wreck. One of his friends from high school was a firefighter in New York City. He later found out that his friend died in one of the Towers, Thomas Joseph Kuveikis. I sat outside my house on the back patio with my friend; we ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and we watched the news. We sat there for at least three hours before my mom came back outside and turned the TV to the only network not showing the news, Cartoon Network. I knew that what was happening was not normal.

  Tania Cohen, New York: There were Black Hawk helicopters flying over the house into the city. My grandma went into the kitchen and made a big batch of pancakes.

  Hiba Elaasar, Louisiana: I was a pretty shy and quiet child, but I had made my first friend on my own. After that day, my friend came over and said, “We can’t be friends anymore, Hiba. My mom said until this is over, we can’t be friends anymore.”

  AGE 8 / THIRD GRADE

  Denise Sciasci, Pennsylvania: My teacher walked me up the steps with tears in her eyes, clenching my hand as if I was her own child. I wondered how something so bad could happen on such a beautiful, warm, and sunny day.

  Alexa Cerf, Washington, D.C.: I was the new kid in school, so when the teacher said, “You might not know what the Pentagon is, but it’s a building that’s very important to us,” I thought she meant important to our school. That a plane had hit a building on campus. I was too embarrassed to ask which building was the Pentagon, but I tried to look out the window for a plane that had crashed.

  Rebekkah Portlock, Alabama: That was the first time I realized that truly awful things could happen to people who didn’t deserve them.

  Jessica Sweeney, New Jersey: “Is your mom OK?” I stared at my blond-haired best friend Alex as the rest of our third-grade class gazed at the TV. Alex’s big blue eyes looked right past me as she said, “I don’t know. She had a meeting there this morning.” I put my hand on her shoulder. Alex’s name stumbled from the loudspeaker, asking her to come to the office. I gave her my package of Dunkaroos—the one my mom had packed me for snack time—before my teacher took Alex downstairs. A few minutes later, Alex ran back into our classroom and hugged me, crying. She told me, “Her meeting in New York got canceled when she was on her way this morning. She turned around before she even crossed the bridge.”

  Manar Hussein, New Jersey: The banner on the screen appeared, with the words in the lines of “suspected al-Qaeda, an Islamic terrorist group, hijackers . . .” as the news anchor tried to explain that we were under attack. The words were foreign to these third-graders, but the word “Islamic” they knew very well—it was the word I had used to introduce myself in these early days of school. A couple students started to look at me, riddling me with hard questioning stares. I couldn’t help but feel ashamed and apologetic for something that had nothing to do with me.

  AGE 9 / FOURTH GRADE

  Matthew Jellock, Pennsylvania: Toward the end of the day, the school called on the public address system to inform us about what had happened. We were asked to stand up for a moment of silence as the song “God Bless the USA” played on the PA radio. I saw the magnitude of what happened when I got home and watched the television. It was a very somber experience and I was feeling like Why? Why did this happen?

  Selena Gomez, Texas: Everyone was distraught.

  AGE 10 / FIFTH GRADE

  Karen Zhou, California: I was a figure skater and practiced on the 5:00 a.m. [PT] session that morning. I don’t actually remember what I did during that hour-long session, but I do know that, at the end of it, I was happy. I bounded into the cafeteria, trying to get my mom’s attention, gleefully peppering her with questions about whether or not she saw me practice. I expected her to be all smiles; instead, her face was a sheet of white, as were all the faces of every other parent that was there.

  Elizabeth Estrada, Texas: I didn’t know what the Twin Towers were or where they were located. I sat on top of one of the desks and cried. My four-year-old sister, along with her teacher, was later brought into the classroom to watch the news. I remember deliberately sitting behind her so that she couldn’t see me cry. I knew that even if she couldn’t fully comprehend what was going on, she would still be scared because of all the chaos. September 11th, 2001, was the first time I ever doubted the safety of my country.

  Kristin Camille Chez, Florida: I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to hurt so many people. They couldn’t possibly have known them all, what reason did they have?


  Nick Waldo, Alaska: My mom told me that some planes had crashed, and being in rural Alaska, I thought a small plane had gone down because of bad weather. I was confused as to why it was a big deal. I said, “Oh, did we know anyone on them?”

  AGE 11 / SIXTH GRADE

  Dana Meredith, Kansas: It was the tradition in my elementary school that the sixth-grade class take a three-day, two-night trip to an outdoor learning center. My class took that trip from September 10 to 12, 2001. I spent September 11, 2001, having fun with my friends. Canoeing in the morning, hiking and exploring an old cemetery in the afternoon, playing soccer and watching Apollo 13 in the evening. Very little was out of place, other than the looped contrails in the sky of planes forced to turn around—I still have a photo, taken on a disposable Kodak camera—and our principal canceling plans to join us because of “disciplinary problems” with a student, a white lie, I realized later. Our teachers sat us down the next day, before we left for home, to explain what had happened, although I could not conceive of the magnitude of the previous day’s events, nor did I even know what the World Trade Center was.

  AGE 12 / SEVENTH GRADE

  Jose Godinez, California: The events unfolded well before I got up for the second Tuesday of seventh grade. The teacher turned on the news coverage. I was glued to the screen, fascinated by the new terms I was learning. “Terrorism” had not entered my lexicon before that day. My understanding of the Middle East, until that day, was limited to Ancient Egypt.

  Irene C. Garcia, California: When my siblings got ready for school, I usually occupied my time with morning cartoons. I remember flipping through the channels and being annoyed that what seemed like every single station was broadcasting the same program. As a child I just wanted to watch my cartoons. I kept flipping the channels until I decided to watch what was going on. I remember smoke coming out of a building and the broadcaster stating what a sad and tragic thing occurred in New York.

  Michael, Pennsylvania: I was looking up the World Trade Center in the encyclopedia that was in the classroom.

  Dan Shuman, Minnesota: Mostly I remember the feeling that went unspoken—or maybe couldn’t be put to words even by adults—that something horrible and incomprehensible had happened that had already changed things forever. At home, after school, I remember my dad telling me about when JFK was killed, when he was eight. He told me that America had gotten through that, and that it would get through this too.

  AGE 13 / EIGHTH GRADE

  Emily Bouck, Florida: My dad is a commercial airline pilot. He was working. All middle and high schoolers were herded into the gymnasium. I was hysterical on the bleachers. My Bible teacher pulled me out of the crowd and took me to the principal’s office: “Do you know where your dad is?” I didn’t. My dad was one of the last planes in the sky—having to turn back to Fort Lauderdale midroute, inbound to a New York–area airport. He was able to answer by the time I called. I’m still thankful for those few moments he was able to tell me he was safe, and for the teacher who looked out for me.

  Kat Cosgrove, New Hampshire: I didn’t really understand the severity of it—a couple buildings a few states away had been hit by planes. I’m not sure I had ever said the word “terrorism” before. Once I got home I turned on the TV to try to figure out what was going on. I remember scrolling through more than 100 channels, seeing the same images of the Twin Towers falling, over and over. I counted 31 TV channels all airing live coverage of 9/11. When I saw that MTV and VH1 were also airing it, that’s when I realized how big a deal it was and started to get scared. It was suddenly not an adult problem, but something that I was supposed to be paying attention to too.

  AGE 14 / NINTH GRADE

  Kathryn Mastandrea, Connecticut: I remember walking into my social studies classroom and my teacher had written, “ ‘Religion is outraged when outrage is done in its name’—Gandhi.” I couldn’t process that it was an act of terrorism, I kept thinking that it was a series of terrible mistakes. Some of our teachers kept the news on, others attempted with the lessons of the day. At lunch, no one talked, and there was a line that stretched down the hallway to the two pay phones at the front of the school. As a bedroom community to New York, nearly everyone had at least one parent who worked in the city. My dad didn’t work in Manhattan, but traveled each week for work. I remember waiting in the line, my stomach in knots, waiting to get in touch with my mom to hear that my dad was okay.

  Sean B., Alabama: I was trying something new that year, going for a new look, a new identity. I was learning to skateboard and in a punk rock band. A guy by the name of Steven sat in front of me. He was a tenth-grader, but for one reason or another he’s in my ninth-grade science class. Steven was the kind of guy I want to be—the character I was trying to become. Seconds after the television was turned on, before I have time to fully process what I was watching, I leaned forward and whispered to Steven, “Anarchy.” He laughed, and I instantly feel dirty. The guilt only grew as we continued watching the news. One of the greatest tragedies in our country’s history, and the first word out of my mouth was a joke.

  AGE 15 / TENTH GRADE

  Lourdes V. Baker, California: It was the first time I completely understood that nothing is simple, some things never make sense, and sometimes horrible things happen for no reason at all. It was the end of my childhood.

  Bill Kuchman, New York: Something that stands out to me the most in my own memory of 9/11 was the juxtaposition between the surreal nature of the day and the monotony of the routines that I still followed. After spending the day at school, constantly trying to catch a glimpse of any new bit of information about the terror attacks, I still went to my high school job at my town’s public library that evening. I was scheduled to work that day, and I never thought of breaking from that routine. I went to work and numbly made it through the four-hour shift I was working as a sophomore.

  I can’t remember how I found out that my local newspaper, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, had published an afternoon extra edition to cover 9/11, but by the time my dad picked me up from the library, I knew that I wanted a copy. After a weird Burger King dinner, my dad and I drove around, going from gas station to gas station in a futile attempt to find a copy of that extra edition. By this point in the night, the extra editions of the newspaper were long gone, but the quiet quest around town to find one is burned into my 9/11 memories.

  AGE 16 / ELEVENTH GRADE

  Jon Kay, California: At around seven in the morning, the tone on KFI AM 640 changed drastically. Bill Handel read off the news ticker as if aliens had been spotted directly above Wilshire Boulevard. Picking up my carpool, suddenly 16 didn’t feel so old.

  Tahlia Hein, New Jersey: September 11th was also picture day in my high school. If you were lucky enough to have a last name like Anderson or Charles, you probably made it through the gymnasium queue before 9:00 a.m. Your smile looks genuine. If you were a Daniels or an Elton, you probably picked up on the fact that Something Had Happened—gossip spreads like wildfire in any high school—but hadn’t yet gone back to a classroom with a television. If you’re a Gore or a Hein, like me, you were screwed. You had to watch the whole terrible thing unfold before your eyes, and then you had to sit to have your picture taken for the yearbook. The command to “Smile!” sounded like the worst insult.

  AGE 17 / TWELFTH GRADE

  Joanne Fischetti, Staten Island: We were told we should leave school and go immediately home. I remember walking to the park with my best friend and talking about whether things will be the same again and whether we’d be able to have a prom, be able to go to college, go to war, or what would happen next for America. It’s amazing how easy it was to lose that feeling of safety.

  COLLEGE

  Michael Szwaja, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: I tried to focus on rehashing the reading I had done the night before for my ethics in journalism quiz. As I walked in the door and quickly took my seat, I realized the quiz wasn’t going to happen. The professor had both TVs in each cor
ner of the classroom tuned to two different channels, each reporting on that World Trade Center crash. “Just keep watching,” our professor said. “Today’s lesson just changed.”

  Mallory Carra, New York University: A long line of people waited for an actual pay phone while trying to use their cell phones. The internet on all of the NYU library computers was painfully slow. After 10 minutes of pressing “refresh,” I read a three-lined AP story to my friend Jia aloud. “Two planes have crashed into World Trade Center.” It took me a second to even realize what those words even meant. In this pre-Twitter world, I finally summed up my feelings in my LiveJournal at 9:14 a.m., “omg i am so scared.”

  Daphne Leigh, Ripon College, Wisconsin: I called my friend Andy over in the freshman boys’ dorm. He very sleepily answered. In the calmest voice possible, I told him to turn on the TV and call me back. As we watched, it happened again [a plane flew into the second tower]. Almost immediately my phone rang. It was Andy, calling to tell me he saw it, and that he was “signing up.” I was stunned, at first not even knowing what he meant. He kept talking, telling me that he had to call his mom, and that he’d stay and finish freshman year, but he was signing up because that’s what you do. Andy did sign up. He joined the National Guard that year.

  Natasha Wright, George Washington University, D.C.: I will never forget how surreal it was returning to the dorm and turning the TVs on. Finding out the Pentagon had been hit. Watching residents of the Watergate across the street from us be evacuated as we were on lockdown and couldn’t leave. The panic began to spread; students on my floor cried together. Some residents packed bags to walk across the bridge and out of the city. Most of us sat in shock. I cried—a lot. We barely knew one another and we were instantly bonded.