9/11 — 25 years later
9/11
TOOK AN EMOTIONAL TOLL ON EVERY AMERICAN, but the incident hit especially hard for the men and women around the country who serve our country in the military or as emergency personnel.
In the days following the attacks on our country, tragic news about First Responders, firefighters and law enforcement officials bombarded us like a summer downpour that wouldn’t let up.
And as the nation marks the 25th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on American soil — one that took the lives of nearly 3,000 people — we reflect on that tragic day. For emergency workers, the reflection carries an especially somber tone, as of the 2,977 people who perished, 411 were emergency personnel, and those who survived still suffer from illnesses linked to Ground Zero exposure.
These were the people, as it has been well documented over the last two-plus decades, are the ones who on that fateful day ran toward the Twin Towers, not from them.
Tracy Police Chief Jason Lichty and Tracy Fire Chief Dale Johnson III remember very clearly where they were and what they were doing when news broke of the attacks.
Lichty was among 50 to 60 fellow officers in a hotel conference center at READ interview training in Owatonna, a class that teaches interviewing techniques. A training officer from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension entered the classroom and announced that there has been an attack on the U.S.
“He said we’re going to take a half-hour break, and go watch the news and find out what’s going on,” Lichty said. “We all went to the lounge area of the hotel and watched different news casts for the next 30 minutes. There wasn’t a whole lot of talking.”
Lichty remembers he and a number of officers stepped outside to call their families to make sure they were aware of what was going on.
“We eventually went back to class; we did take some extended breaks that day to catch up on everything,” Lichty said.
What separates people like Lichty from citizens who aren’t a member of the law enforcement brotherhood is not only can he recall exactly what he was doing at that time, but the details, too.
“Three-hundred-and-fortythree firemen who died, 47 cops, not to mention how many other individuals; I would say if you walked up to somebody on the street and asked how many people died in that incident — plus cops and firemen — you probably see it different than I see it.”
Johnson was in the same boat as Lichty, but with an ironic and chilling twist. Just less than six hours after American Airlines Flight 11 was hijacked over Massachusetts he arrived home — by plane — from a wedding in Washington. He got home at 5:30 a.m. to start what he thought would be another normal day.
“Got up, turned the TV on … I sat there and watched TV just about all day,” Johnson said. “Just in awe.”
But Johnson’s story doesn’t end there. His parents, and aunt and uncle were also flying home that morning.
“The fact of not being to communicate with them …” he said. “When the plane hit the tower, they didn’t know if it was a commercial plane or what it was. Everything just started unfolding and it was like, ‘Holy crap.’ You think about all the people in there, the First Responders …” As members of the fire department, Lichty and Johnson also try to grasp the difficult task emergency personnel had in front of them.
“Jason is kind of wired like I am — you start thinking of things like, that’s a lot of flights of stairs,’” Johnson said. “And where do you take all those injured people? There’s no ladder truck to put that fire out.”
“And to watch the desperation of people having to jump off the building to get away from the heat,” added Lichty. “Do you take that way out, or burn to death?”
Besides the unavoidable fear and anger, a sense of guilt also overcame them. As people who are trained to help others, being thousands of miles away from tragedy was tough on them.
“It was a mix of wishing you could be there to help but glad you don’t have to deal with it,” said Lichty. “And a lot of confusion about what’s going to happen next to this country.”
That uneasy fear of the unknown was inescapable for everyone.
“It’s human nature — you just start thinking, well what’s next?” Johnson said. “We don’t see anything when we look out the window … but is a plane going to hit the Mall of America, you know?”
To that point, Johnson said while it’s rare that outstate departments get summoned to the Twin Cities, the thought of that happening couldn’t be avoided. In fact, it almost happened during the civil unrest brought upon by the George Floyd riots in May 2020.
“At some point, it could’ve affected us,” he said. “During the riots, they took officers from this area. “There was a calendar set up for area fire departments — it was scheduled out as far as us.”
Twenty-five years might be a long stretch of time, but for Lichty and Johnson, time hasn’t healed all wounds.
“Every September 10, we put the fire truck out, we put the flag out,” Johnson said. “The traveling memorial still goes around, it’s still a huge deal. If you were to ask somebody that’s 30 to 40 years old now what they remember about 9/11 versus what they remember about Covid, I would like to believe that the majority of them still know what happened that day.”
