Jeff's Commentary - 9/10 - September 11th, 2001

I’m old enough to know where I was the day that John F. Kennedy was shot. To this day I still vividly remember sitting at the kitchen table with my dad later that week on a Sunday morning when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed as he was getting booked live on TV.

In April of 1968, I remember the night on the fourth that Martin Luther King was shot and then the summer of our cities burning. All on live TV.

But nothing will resonate with me like the events of September 11, 2001. I recall every hour of the event and the impact that that still haunts me and America. That morning, I was driving to work at my normal early morning time. And KTAR broke in with a story that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center around 5:48am. It was a big story and I was working at KPNX-TV at the time as General Sales Manager. I called the news desk and they were on the story. Little did we all know that this would be a day to remember similar to December 7th, 1941. And it was all live on TV.

By the time I got into the office and headed to the newsroom, the AP line was on fire that another plane had just struck the second tower. It was 6:06am Phoenix time. With the power of television, I witnessed the plane crashing into the tower within minutes on the Today Show. There was panic in the air. While the first event could still be viewed as a tragic accident, the second sounded an alarm that the U.S. was under attack. I called home and told my wife to keep the kids home.

Again, with all this unfolding now live on TV, there was another attack at 6:37am Phoenix time. This time a plane roared into the Pentagon spreading death there. It was surreal. Everyone wanted to do something to help but there was little to do. The news department began a week of coverage that was some of the best reporting I ever was a part of.

At 7:06 we heard of yet another crash of a plane outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania. What was happening? How many more planes were out there ready to crash? It was incredible to watch. History was being made as four airplanes had now crashed into the U.S. in less than two hours.

Then as the day progressed and we witnessed one, then another World Trade Center fall into the hole of the earth, I knew our life and world as we knew it would be changed forever. I had no idea how to pronounce al Qaeda that day but it became a word now synonymous with evil to most of us.

Since 9/11 we have had nine years of Afghanistan and eight years of Iraq. Only time and history will tell us if we did the right thing in both countries. This ninth anniversary, I will take a moment to pray for all that has happened, and wish that the hatred and anger that came from all of this could one day be erased. I fear though, it will not. It is important to remember, but it is more important to make our world a better place for all of us to live. I pray we can one day get there. I have faith that can still happen. But we need to remember the events of September 11th, 2001 to heal first.

Jeff