September 8, 2006

by Jerry Gordon

It was 8:46 AM on 9/11/01 when I first heard the ultimately devastating reports and saw first hand the images that struck all of us dumb and numbed by the death and destruction that day brought into our lives that took the lives of 3,012 innocent people.

The Jihad against America had begun.

I was finishing a diplomatic outreach committee meeting at the national headquarters of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) near Third Avenue and 56th Streets, when Diane Steinman, executive director of the New York chapter rushed into to say they heard reports of a plane crashing into one of the twin towers at the World Trade Center (WTC) complex, downtown.

My first reaction was for the safety of a fellow AJC NYC chapter board member and friend, former New York State Senator, Fred Ohrenstein whose offices were located on the 84th floor of the north tower.

Incredibly, my cousins, John and Alice Eigner who lived in Ma’aleh Adumim in Israel found on the internet a Los Angeles Times interview with WTC survivors that included remarks by a sobered by safe Fred Ohrenstein.

I was headed to a meeting at 140 Broadway adjacent to the WTC complex crash site, so I immediately called and cancelled the session. Instead, I called my son Harold, a litigation partner at the New York offices of Jones Day and walked briskly down Lexington Avenue office to his building at the corner of 52nd Street.

Along the way to my son Harold’s law offices, I chanced to look at TV images in a storefront of the sickening curling smoke from the first and shortly second crashes into the north and south towers of the WTC complex. A bystander who said he was from Egypt asked what was going on? I told him that islamic terrorists had seized two aircraft and deliberately flown them into the twin towers killing themselves, the captive passengers and causing untold thousands of deaths and casualties, and soon-destruction to the complex. He said that no self respecting Muslim would do that. it must have been “others “who did that. I didn’t have the time nor the requisite information to rebutt him, nor the inclination to waste my breathe.

When I got to my son’s offices at the New York offices of Jones Day, he guided me up to a vantge point on the 38th floor in his building that had a clear view south towards the WTC complex at the tip of Manhattan.

We watched in horror, shock and disbelief, along with other partners, associates and staff , as first the south tower and then the north tower crumbled into the sickening atomic like plumes rising emblazoned against an azure clear blue sky. We immediately speculated about how many tens of thousands of workers were present in their offices in the WTC complex or transiting below it via the PATH tubes from New Jersey. We were horrified and traumatized that someone could perpetrate this heinous crime and shatter our up to then secure complacent world.

We were all sickened and incredulous at the massive destruction wrought. Our immediate concern was for the thousands of dead, maimed, wounded and their surviving families. My own thoughts were for several professional acquaintances who may have been at work at the WTC complex.

Later I would learn that several of them would miraculously survive and unfortunately several were dead or missing. As the immediate weeks unfolded the ache and burden of attending funerals, shivas and memorial services was unbearable. Even today, the memories bring back tears and sobs for the compassion of souls of the dead and the enormous depths of grief not easily overcome by the survivors. All caused by heedless, mindless hate. Hate from afar, hate from a stranger, hate from a fanatic killer. Jihad hate.

The grief was instant, somber, deep and sobering.

Turning to my son and a partner-the latter a self described liberal, my initial reaction was that this Islamic terrorist event was the ‘Pearl Harbor of the 21st century’. That 9/11, was the first day of a war against the terrorists, had begun. He agreed. We also agreed that the islamic terrorist perpetrators did this because they hated everything that we stood for: liberty, human rights, modernity, equal treatment of women. But we demurred, when my son’s law partner said this was their way of getting back at us for not having fostered and abetted peace in the middle east between Israel and the Palestinians. I said that after the rejection of the generous Barak offer, that this attack was unwarrented, as the Palestinians had lost their chance for peace: prescient at the time.

We watched and listened as the reports came tumbling in increduously about similar attacks on the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia and the crash in Pennsylvania and speculated whether the latter aircraft was on a track to “hit” either the Capitol or the White House. Later my son and daughter in law, Carrie, would learn that day that a fellow Cardozo law school graduate,CNN news commentator Barbara Olson, wife of US Solicitor General Ted Olson died along with other captive passengers in the Pentagon plane attack.

My son Harold thoughtfully got me an office with a PC. I used my cell phone to talk with Jean , who was home in Fairfield on a day off from teaching duties at the Fashion Institute of Technology in lower mid town Manhattan. Her relief at my safety was palpable. I then turned to the task of communicating with family and friends in the US, Europe, Israel about the initial trauma of that day.

Harold came to fetch me about mid day and we both shuffled off to a buffet line that had been set up by his law firm. We dallied and sifted over our food. We talked with visiting lawyers from North Carolina, Chicago and California marooned by the sudden tragic events of the day. We commiserated about the anguish of the survivors and grieved openly for the dead, wounded and missing. They then speculated about how they were ever going to get back to their respective homes, as the air trabsport system had been shut down for an indeterminate period of time.

Later we would hear the incredible stories of tens of thousands of trans atlantic air passengers who were diverted to Gander, Newfoundland for what turned out to be a few days before their flights were routed to their respective destinations. These experiences were multiplied several thousand fold for domestic flights shut down or diverted to the nearest airports by the closing of the US and intrenational air transport system.

About mid afternoon, Harold came into the office I was using and said that the first trains from nearby Grand Central station were heading north. He, a colleague who lived in suburban Westchester County, New York and I mingled with throngs of thousands shuffling tramautized down a sun splashed Lexington Avenue towards the commuter rail station complex on 42nd Street. Along the way we noticed that police had put crime scene tape around the entrances to the City’s subway system that had been shut down.

When we reached Grand Central it was jammed with thousands desperate to get out of the city to the northern suburbs in Werstchester County, New York and Connecticut. Harold’s colleague and I were fortunate to be jammed into one of the first trains out.

Around us were other weary and saddened observers of the day’s horrific events. There were survivors among us of the actual attack and destruction of the twin WTC towers. They looked like zombies covered with ash from head to foot, eyes glazed, muttering how fortunate they were to have survived. They described the first moments of the attacks. The awful sights of desperately trapped people on the upper floors of the twin towers whose bodies came hurtling down to sounds of sickening thuds against the streets and concrete aprons surrounding the WTC complex. They told vivid stories about the valiant heroic, fire, police and rescue service personnel who assisted survivors in escaping. They described incredible scenes of the “nuclear winter” wrought by the collapse of the twin towers. They told of scenes of teeming tens of thousands of trauumatized survivors trudging along the canyons of lower Manhattan avenues north and across the nearest East River bridge crossings to safety.

The hours, weeks, months, and yes years since 9/11/2001 have not dulled these memories of that day that butalized the beauty of a late summer morning with news that transformed us irreovcably, saddened our hearts, seared our minds and resolved us to never let this happen, again!!

In innumerable ways, the sights and vivid memories of that awful day of death and destruction have propelled me and tens if not hundreds, nay thousands to become grass roots activitsts, and yes, bloggers.

Has the Jihad war on America ceased? You’ve got to be kidding. It’s just begun and dogs us every day. If only we had the resolve to combat it conclusively. We can hope,, but we must do more. We must fight to win!