Looking back at 9/11

Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terror attacks that cost the lives of 2,997 Americans. The attacks in New York and Washington DC were more than 2000 miles away from Montana, but they brought the country together in a way that seems almost impossible today.

The BVD talked to several people around Lincoln about their thoughts 20 years later.

People who are old enough to remember the morning of Sept.11, 2001 can tell you exactly where they were. Like Pearl Harbor, the assassination of JFK or the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, the news, feelings and memories of that day are seared into the memory, regardless of where people lived.

For most people, the day started like any other Tuesday. People who had to be to work early were up and getting ready for the day. But by 7 a.m. in Montana, the news was alive with reports that an airplane had crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. A few short minutes later, at 7:03 a.m. Mountain Time, it became clear the world was going to change.

"I was standing in the warehouse at base supply," said Dawn Charron. Now retired from the Montana Air National Guard as a Senor Master Sergeant, she was leader of MANG's color guard. "I was loading the van up with all of our military funeral honors pieces and props so I could do military funeral honors for the first Command Chief for the State of Montana, Roger K. Larsen. They had a TV above the warehouse in-processing desk. I looked up at the TV and I thought 'what on earth," and then I watched the second plane hit the towers."

For many, like Jason Valler, who was managing a ranch near Kalispell with his wife Tiana at the time, the scenes unfolding on the TV didn't quite make sense.

"I can remember looking at it ...I don't know how long I sat there. It felt like an hour, but it was probably three minutes...just kind of being in shock," he said. "It was almost a thing of 'am I watching a movie or is this really happening?' It's that thing where your brain can't really grasp the reality of what's going on."

Charlie Butler, then a firefighter in Great Falls, was home in bed that morning., recovering from a bout of illness that had sent him to the hospital a couple days before. His neighbor came over, in tears because her brother worked at or near the World Trade Center, to tell him of the attacks.

"I was still recovering from dehydration, but I look at it and they're showing the re-runs, then the second plane hit, and I said, 'that's a terrorist attack,'" Initially, he wasn't sure which tower had been hit and assumed the first attack was designed to draw in responders who would be killed by the second attack.

For firefighters like Butler, young and old alike, Sept. 11 is a sacred day. "Three hundred and forty-three firefighters died. You don't forget that. And police officers or Port Authority. They know the price."

Half an hour after the planes hit the World Trade Center, a hijacked jet hit the Pentagon. Thirty minutes after that, the fourth hijacked airliner, Flight 93, crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pa. as passengers realized what was happening and took on the hijackers.

At 7:42 a.m. mountain time, the FAA grounded all flights to and over the US.

For Deb Rauber, who was working as a firefighter in Arizona and watched the attacks on TV like everyone else, the reality of the situation was brought home that night in an unexpected way.

"We were sitting in our hot tub in the back yard in Arizona," she said. "Usually when we sit there, we watch airliner after airliner after airliner go over. That night there wasn't one airplane in the sky. Until that point, it was something that was on TV."

Memories of 9/11 bring back not just the images, but the feelings.

"My thoughts about that are how terribly sad it was," said Teresa Garland. She recalled calling Bob Armstrong with the American Legion to make sure the flags were put out around town.

"I always refer back to the date that it happened; the time and the date and how completely freaked out the whole situation was and how unbelievable," said Becky Garland. "Then I think of all the people who passed away and those whose loved ones have gone and it's just the tragedy."

'"It's just sad," said Denny Creech. "I felt sorry for the families that survived it, and the people who had to deal with it. We don't see that part; we just know that problem's there. It makes you mad though. It makes you fightin' mad when this kind of stuff happens."

Lincoln School's new history teacher, Ryan Hollinger, hails from Philadelphia. For him, 9/11 was much closer to home and is one of his earliest memories. 'I was almost four. I remember being picked up from preschool and my mom being terrified. I remember that being seared into my memory,"

While most people agree that Sept. 11, 2001, is not likely to be forgotten as a historic event, the question of how significant it is, or will remain, isn't exactly settled.

"I think those tragedies that are anywhere in the world, especially in the United States where we live... should be remembered for what they were," Becky Garland said. "We shouldn't forget, but we do. That's human nature, to march through our lives and forget about those things. But I'm glad to be reminded of it, so I can remember my feelings for those two or three or four days afterwards. It's still unbelievable, so I don't want to forget. There was a pile of people killed and a pile of people still grieving, I'm sure."

"For the majority of the people in our generation, no, it isn't fading," Charron said, but she added that's not necessarily the case for younger generations "If you were to play the news coverage from that day for my grandkids, they'd think they were in a video game or watching a damn movie. They would have no idea at all because it's history. And apparently were not supposed to have history anymore."

For his part, Hollinger includes the Sept. 11 attacks in his classes. "It's the largest terror attack in US history. I think it kind of defined a decade, decade and a half of foreign policy. However, he agreed its significance seems to be waning. "Right afterwards there was this fervor of patriotism and there were calls to do something about it, and now ... it's less fresh in their memories and they're more focused on other things. I think they're hurting over what's happened since then. Maybe we didn't respond in the best way possible. People are starting to question that. Hindsight's 20/20. This anniversary, it's time for reflection, both on the terrible tragedy and the lives that were lost, and how we responded to it."

"We all need to go back to the day after," Rauber said. "The kindness and helping one another and the love. And what happened as those building fell: those firefighters rushed up as everyone else was rushing down. Now a lot of those people who worked it are dying. Are we honoring them? Are we remembering what they did?"

Lincoln firefighter and EMT Jonathon Frisbee, who heard about the attacks as an 8th grader on a school bus in Utah, said 9/11 taught the U.S. a lot of lessons, which need to be remembered to truly honor the tragedy of that day. "The problem is, we focus on the tragedy more than we do the lessons. We've got so many kids who weren't born yet or were too young to know what really happened. I think the country and the community, as a whole, could use a good history lesson. Remember it for what it could teach us, not remember it just for the tragedy involved."

Frisbee believes the significance is fading with time but summed it up much like others we talked to.

"It's been twenty years, they're learning about it in school the same way we learned about Pearl Harbor," he said. "They were huge tragedies, and there's a lot of significance and importance to them, but when you learn about them in a history book, it hits a little different than when you live through it."

Still, some in Lincoln born after 2001 understand the importance of that day.

Nathan Brown, born a couple months after the attacks, learned about it largely though social media interactions with people who were there or who remember it.

"It's something people should remember, for sure; keep it at heart," he said. "It's definitely something we should memorialize people for; the live that were lost. Just have an open mind about these kinds of things. it's not going to be the last time something like this happens, so we've got to be there for those who need the support.

Lincoln High School Senior Andrea LaManna said her parents, Leah Feeback and Russ LaManna, are from New York and were there when it happened.

"Hearing their perspective was very impactful," she said.

LaManna said 9/11 is still on her mind and on the minds of her classmates, even though they weren't born yet. She said they talk about it among themselves outside of class, although it has also been a part of her history class. "We've been talking about it. We usually watch videos and go over it because it was a big day in history. It was brought up again because of up-to-date news about Afghanistan, so it's been talked about."

For many, the recent handling of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last month has cast a pall over the upcoming milestone anniversary.

Afghanistan, the country we first invaded on Oct. 7, 2001, to prevent another 9/+11, is once again under Taliban control.

Regardless of who one feels is to blame, the withdrawal and a record airlift of more than 120,000 people (which arguably shouldn't have been necessary had things been done differently) was capped off by the loss of 13 Servicemembers and the stranding of hundreds of Americans and Afghan allies and has reframed 20 years of effort there as a defeat.

"Look at what happening right now in Afghanistan," Butler said. "We're sacrificing people who we promised to protect and help, and we're not doing it."

For Charron, whose family has a long history of service, the impact on veterans comes to mind.

"Now it seems like it was all for naught. and that's unfortunate. We know how our Vietnam vets have felt for all of these years. And man, I hope our Enduring Freedom (and) Iraqi Freedom (vets), I hope all those people don't feel the same because of what's happened in the last couple weeks."

"Did we need to spend 20 years?" she asked. "Well, that's twenty years we spent keeping it away from here. We haven't had more giant attacks on our soil in 20 years, we did need to be there. It was necessary. It is necessary."

On Sept. 15, 2001, Lincoln Observed the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance at the Lincoln School Gym. Then-high school Senior Stephanie Leonard spoke about tragedy and hope, noting in part of her remarks that "Although in the darkest days the United States or the world has seen, we as a country have come together to help each other in chaos."