Remembering 9/11: The fear we shared and the patriotism we found

Twenty-five years later, Big Horn Basin residents recall a morning of disbelief and a country that came together in grief and resolve

The events of September 11, 2001, are so firmly fixed in my mind that it is hard to imagine how many Americans now have no personal memory of that day. For about half of us who are old enough to understand it, it remains one of those moments when the question, “Where were you?” can be answered immediately.

For our parents, it was November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. For an earlier generation, it was December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

For us, it was September 11.

On that day, al-Qaeda terrorists led by Osama bin Laden hijacked four commercial airplanes. In all, 2,977 innocent people were killed: 246 passengers and crew members, 125 people at the Pentagon and 2,606 people in and around the World Trade Center. Among the dead were 403 New York firefighters and police officers who entered the towers and never came out.

But the numbers tell only part of the story. A few weeks ago, I asked people around the Big Horn Basin to share their memories of that day 25 years ago. Their answers brought back the fear, confusion, sorrow and, perhaps most vividly, the patriotism and unity that followed.

For me, the day began with The Today Show as I got ready for work. Matt Lauer and Katie Couric were showing one of the Twin Towers with smoke pouring from it. I headed to work at the high school library in Byron where the entire school seemed to pack in to watch the events on a 19-inch TV.   

What we saw seemed like they came from a movie.

One plane crashed into a tower. Then another. We heard reports from the Pentagon and rural Pennsylvania. Then the South Tower collapsed, followed by the North Tower. It was hard to believe that something so enormous and familiar could simply disappear from the New York skyline.

That disbelief is the first feeling that returns in almost every memory. Barb Rodriguez was at work with the radio on and initially thought the report was “a promo for a new movie.” When people realized it was real, it was simply “scary.” The days afterward were eerie, she said, because there were “no planes in the sky.”

In Cody, Ray Burns heard NPR interrupt a story about the inventor of the bar code to report that a plane had hit the South Tower. He reached work, turned on the television and saw the second plane hit. Burns had attended college in New York and worked in the South Tower during the mid-1980s. Within a week, he learned that 13 people he knew had been killed.

Others remember the ordinary moments interrupted by terrible news. John Collar heard it over a radio in the Albertsons receiving area. Linda Eggeman saw it before work in Yellowstone. Shirrel Short sat in her car in Cody and cried.

In Idaho Falls, Kelli Steenbakkers was holding her 4-month-old son while her daughters were at school. “What is happening?” she and her husband kept asking. “Is this the end?”

Brooke Wallway, then in the Pacific Northwest with two toddlers asleep, saw the smoke on The Today Show. Seconds later, another plane went through the building.

“Complete shock ran through my body,” she recalled. The weeks that followed became mourning for “what I thought was an untouchable experience.”

For parents, the fear quickly became personal. Deni Hirsh heard about the second plane while in a carpool in Memphis.

“This is no accident!” she cried. Worried that the FedEx hub could be another target, she brought home her two daughters. “I just wanted to hold them and keep them safe with me,” she said.

Teri Michaels remembers the day especially sharply because it was her birthday. She had decorated cupcakes for college classmates, only to find the student body gathered around one cafeteria television. Her instructor’s wife had been in one of the towers, and he was trying frantically to reach her and get to New York. Michaels took the cupcakes back home, because nobody felt like celebrating.

The school memories are particularly close to home. Kylee Thormahlen heard the first alert on her car radio, then spent much of the morning in the school library.

“My heart sank and tears rolled down my face,” she said. The next day, students gathered around the flagpole, held hands and sang the national anthem. She remembered “a newfound pride of what it meant to be an American.”

Shane Brost was a sophomore in that same library. He saw his brother standing in front of the television, and the look on his face made the disaster real. Students watched in silence as the room filled. In the months and years that followed, Brost said, “I got a real-life feel for what patriotism really meant.” He watched communities strengthen their bonds and rally around the country.

Tianne Tippetts Samson, then a high school junior, remembered teachers allowing students to watch television throughout the day. “Nobody talked all day,” she said. “Everyone was somber and silent.” As a member of the dance team, she and others put flags in people’s yards and left them up for about a month. It was one of the ways the community showed that it was there for one another.

Many families turned first to faith and service. Lynnette Davis recalled sitting with her family, unable to believe the television pictures. They prayed together, and their church’s service that night was packed.

“Many young men enlisted that day,” she said.

Jean Anderson Loyning remembers the workday essentially stopping, but also Americans coming together and uniting. Her lasting lesson is simple: people need to be human and kind to one another.

The attack’s reach was felt far beyond the Basin. Kris Carle was teaching first grade at Misawa Air Base in Japan. Her thoughts went immediately to military families and coming deployments. When the base reopened, she saw armed soldiers and a tank protecting the gate outside her youngest daughter’s classroom. That image, and the fear of knowing her child was just feet away, has never left her.

Jeff Pearson and his wife, Chris, were having lunch in coastal Spain after visiting Gibraltar when someone rushed into the bar saying that a plane had hit. They watched the second impact with people of many nationalities gathering around them. As they made their way home, Pearson said the grief, support and goodwill toward Americans were deeply moving.

James Peck of Jackson had flown home from a family wedding near Boston only a week earlier. Watching CNN from Cheyenne, he heard an announcer speculate about navigational errors after the second plane struck, but Peck knew immediately that it was an attack. 

Kade Ames was in Sheridan when he and Travis Marchant returned from a run and learned what had happened. A line for gas stretched a block.

“It just seemed like everyone was lost, not knowing what to do,” Ames said. 

Mike Bereman, in Bellevue, Washington, had to tell a neighbor planning to fly to Hawaii that all flights had been canceled.

The attacks changed lives in more lasting ways. William Burley was at home in Pennsylvania that morning. He later went back into the Army and served a tour in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004. 

Emily Asay, then a freshman at BYU-Idaho, heard about the attack in class before seeing images herself. More than two decades later, a visit to the 9/11 Museum in New York, where she saw clothing still covered in dust, was “heart-wrenching.”

EmRee Moncur Pugmire remembers gathering with family and neighbors at a community center to watch the news and relatives’ fear about getting back to Wyoming. She also remembers a friend facing persecution because of her husband’s national heritage. Patriotism at its best should never lose sight of that lesson. The unity people remember was strongest when expressed through compassion, not suspicion.

Vicki Hammond said the most enduring image for her was how united the country became. That hope runs through these memories: flags in yards, hands joined around a school flagpole, packed churches, families gathering close and young people choosing to serve.

Twenty-five years later, we cannot bring back the 2,977 people who were killed or erase their families’ sorrow. We can remember the courage of the passengers, first responders and ordinary citizens who acted in the face of terror. And we can remember the patriotism people across the Big Horn Basin saw in each other: a love of country expressed in flags and songs, but also in prayer, service, kindness and the determination to stand together.

Just as earlier generations remembered the day President Kennedy was shot or first learned of the horrors at Pearl Harbor, it is important that the next generation understands the thoughts, fears and emotions Americans felt on September 11. Those memories are more than history. They can teach the value of unity, compassion and vigilance, and perhaps help inspire those who come after us to ensure such a day never happens again.