I was a full time lawyer in those days. I was at the University of Chicago getting ready for a full day of interviews. I would spend the day chatting in twenty minute increments with law students eager to land their first jobs. But first, I had a quick conference call to take care of. My friend, Jon, patched me into the call. Before adding the client, he mentioned that he had gotten an e-mail from his wife saying that an airplane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers in New York. We were both thinking "Cessna."
The call ended and the interviews started. Jon's comment about the plane and the building in New York had quickly passed from my mind.
After I had gotten through several interviews it became apparent that something more significant had taken place than I first realized, and I found myself in a crowded break room watching the coverage on T.V. Like most people, even then I did not realize the magnitude of what I was seeing.
As the day progressed, I would periodically run downstairs between interviews to see what was happening. Oddly, only one law student "no-showed" that entire day.
In some ways, as I was watching the coverage on T.V., the events of 911 seemed a world away. To others near me, though, the event was all too real. There was a man in the interview room next to mine who was interviewing students for his law firm in New York -- which happened to be located in one of the World Trade Center towers. The man was understandably in shock -- remarking several times that he didn't know whether he still had a law firm to recruit for.
One of the young attorneys who was with me that day was from my firm's Washington D.C. office. This young man was in the firm's appellate group, and had apparently done a fair amount of work for one of our partners named Ted Olson. Less than a year earlier, Mr. Olson had successfully represented George W. Bush in the "hanging chads" case against Al Gore before the United States Supreme Court and was now the Solicitor General of the United States. At some point during the day we learned that Mr. Olson's wife, Barbara, was on the plane that hit the Pentagon.
As the day unfolded my thoughts naturally turned to my own family, and I had a desperate desire to get home. As law enforcement began to put the pieces of the puzzle together the media began to stir the pot with speculation about whether the attacks were finished or whether there was more to come. I needed to get home.
I decided to head back to Dallas the next day. But, of course, all air travel had been suspended and there was no telling when flights would resume. So, I took a cab to a car rental place near the airport. The lines for rental cars were, not surprisingly, extremely long. I finally made my way to the counter only to be informed that nothing was available. I mentioned to the lady behind the counter that I had seen a rental car with a Texas license plate, and asked if she was sure that I couldn't take that car back to Texas. For reasons I will never know, the lady told me to get the space number where the car was parked and that she would let me have it. I remember nothing about that drive home -- except that I was thrilled to be on my way and that I drove straight through.
Hours later, I pulled into DFW airport to drop off the rental car and pick up my own car. I took a bus from the rental car place to the lot where my car was parked. I was the lone passenger on that bus.
I have been to DFW airport literally hundreds of times. It is one of the busiest airports in the country. But as I got off the bus and started walking to my car it was like a scene out of the "Twilight Zone." The parking lot was full of cars but not a single person aside from me. There were none of the normal sounds of this busy airport -- no sounds of cars and buses, jets landing and taking off or people talking on cell phones. Aside from the sound of the gentle breeze -- only silence. If I had been blindfolded and had to guess where I was, I could have easily thought I was in the middle of some undeveloped prairie far away from any city. It was eerie, but it was good to be home.
One thing that I remember about the aftermath of 911 was that for a brief period of time church attendance in the United States surged. I don't fully understand the reasons for that. It was obviously a time of great reflection for us as a nation and for most of us individually. For some, perhaps going to church then was motivated by fear or a feeling of loss of control. For some, maybe it was a loss of confidence in the things of this world in which they had put their faith -- things like law enforcement, government, money, etc. For others, maybe that time of reflection reminded them briefly of a time when they thought that there must be some meaning to life beyond personal happiness, personal ambition or even simple survival. Whatever the reasons for the surge, within a short time church attendance returned to "normal" levels.
Ten years later and we find ourselves in yet another crisis -- an economic one. Many of the same people who accounted for the brief surge in church attendance after 911 again put their faith in government, in the stock market, in their jobs, and in worldly goods and pleasures. It is a faith that, as we learn time and time again, ultimately disappoints.
"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
'Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.'"
Hebrews 13:5
Please feel free to leave a comment with your recollections of 9-11.
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