20 years after the September 11 attacks, Americans remember the fateful day.
Where were you on 9/11?
Where were you on 9/11?
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00:00I remember not understanding what was happening.
00:02I remember going to school like normal.
00:04I remember a lot of people talking about how the towers had been hit.
00:08I remember one of the teachers just running down the hallway saying,
00:11another plane.
00:11Everybody remembers that.
00:12Always remember.
00:18I was 10 years old on 9-11.
00:20My dad was a lieutenant at one of the firehouses that was close to the trade center.
00:26On the morning of September 11th, I was not supposed to work as a photographer.
00:32I was going to my teaching job on the university level.
00:35On 9-11, 125 people died when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9.37am.
00:41My dad that day could have made 126.
00:44On September 11th, I was 8 years old and living in Brooklyn, and my dad worked at the World
00:49Financial Center, which was right next to the World Trade.
00:52I remember saying goodbye to him that morning.
00:54On September 11th, 2001, I was starting fourth grade in New York City.
01:00I'm Ethiopian.
01:01Ethiopian New Year is September 11th.
01:05So I was, you know, saying, should I go to work, should I not?
01:09Actually, that day I used to go to work over there, you know, in the messenger center.
01:14I didn't want to go, I don't know why.
01:16That day sticks in my mind.
01:17It was a nice day in Arizona, just like it was in New York.
01:20It was a beautiful day in New York, and the humidity was low.
01:24It was the end of summer, and the sky was this brilliant blue.
01:27I was at a friend's house, helping him work on his house when the first plane hit.
01:32I was checking in on one of my patients, and I saw on the TV that Airplane One hit the
01:39tower, and I thought it was a movie.
01:42I was in school.
01:43I didn't really put too much together that my dad was there.
01:47I knew he was picking me up from school that day.
01:51I knew the Twin Towers were his favorite buildings.
01:54I called NYU, where I was scheduled to teach, at 9 a.m., and said, there's been a news emergency.
02:03Can you put a note on my door that I'd be late to class?
02:07Students were being pulled out of class without telling us why.
02:10I remember going to school like normal, and then being told right after we said the Pledge
02:14of Allegiance that there was an accident.
02:17And then, literally 10 minutes later, being picked up from school, which was already a
02:21privilege, but also very strange.
02:22Like, why is this happening?
02:23When I came in the house, I saw the second plane hit the tower.
02:27Now, like we all, nobody knew what aircrafts or what airline or what at first.
02:32Of course, I called the airport and tried to get a hold of work, and all the chaos was
02:37going on.
02:38I got woken up by my parents early in the morning, told them that there was a terrorist
02:40attack.
02:41From that day forward, pretty much glued to the TV.
02:44I was a young firefighter at the time, and pretty much knew from that point on that things
02:49were going to change with this job.
02:50I photographed for about a half hour or 45 minutes as rescue workers were arriving, as
02:56people who were injured were streaming out onto the streets being aided, as firefighters,
03:02paramedics, police officers were going in to rescue people.
03:08And I photographed the second plane hitting the building.
03:13It was downtown near Washington Square Park.
03:16When I seen the plane slam into the building, my cigar and my weed fell in my lap.
03:21When the tower came down, I was standing right in front of it.
03:24I was picked up and tossed.
03:26I was buried under debris in the middle of the street, and I really thought I was going
03:30to die.
03:31I don't know exactly what I was underneath, but my mouth was clogged with debris, with
03:36ash, with powdered concrete, and other objects that had just disintegrated in the collapse.
03:41I cleared my mouth and nose, started calling out for help, and that's when I was found
03:46by the first team of firefighters.
03:48My dad just loved every bit of being a firefighter.
03:52I just have this feeling in my heart and in my gut that I knew that my dad did everything
03:58to get all those men and women home to their families.
04:00Then it gradually filtered out.
04:02It was American and United Aircrafts, and they were going to the West Coast, and all
04:06of a sudden I'm starting to hear more of them.
04:08Then I realized I knew who they were, you know what I mean?
04:11Because I fly with them all the time on that move, Boston and L.A.
04:13I had a stepdad.
04:14He was working close to the building of 9-11, and thank God he survived from that alignment
04:21that was happening.
04:22My dad worked at the Pentagon doing construction around that time.
04:26I was his child back then, but that morning I refused and refused and refused to put my
04:31shoes on.
04:32My dad spent a long time that morning fighting with me over shoes, and because of that, he
04:38was late to work that day.
04:40He got into the city just around the time the plane hit the building, and he was able
04:44to see it from the roadway.
04:45It was a surreal feeling, because, I mean, when you see that happen, and then a couple
04:51hours later you find out you knew those people, it was unbelievable.
04:55It was like going into shock, I couldn't believe it.
04:58I was like, oh, good grief, good grief, you know, like, it is awful.
05:03I saw a lot of people with these white, you know, the bodies with white stuff walking
05:09by very silently.
05:12Some people were crying, but they didn't say anything.
05:14Nobody was talking about what happened, you know.
05:16I was angry.
05:17I was really angry, because, based on hospital work, life is really, really precious.
05:25Alright.
05:26Just being horrified and not really knowing what to do, attempting to get blood if that
05:32was a needed thing, because you don't know, you know, you're a world apart, essentially.
05:37My mom explained that something called a terrorist attack happened, and these bad guys did something
05:41bad, but for me, it was just like, I'm getting picked up from school, okay, what's going
05:45on?
05:46Being nine years old, I didn't really think much of it until I was walking home through
05:52completely empty streets and a weird feeling in the city that I knew that something bad
05:58had happened.
05:59I remember being sent home early that day, and as I was walking home, I'll never forget
06:02that the sky was just completely empty, completely quiet, where normally there's always some
06:06kind of commercial plane flying way above the head, but it was almost eerie.
06:10I remember when I was driving home at five o'clock, it's like 30 miles from Maryland
06:16to Fairfax, my house, there was not a single car on the street.
06:21That hit me.
06:22I got scared.
06:23The city was abandoned.
06:24I haven't been on a plane since.
06:27The next morning, a neighbor had brought all the New York papers, and I, of course, went
06:34to my paper first, and on page two was this big color photograph, the entire page, from
06:40top to bottom and from left to right, and I looked at this picture, and I said, oh my
06:45God, somebody captured the plane hitting the building, and then I looked at the name credit,
06:51the picture credit on the photograph, and it was my picture.