Editor's Notebook

Gracie and I are Today Show watchers (well the TV is on) in the mornings as we scurry about getting ready for the workday ahead.

I remember the day like it was yesterday, just like all of you who are of age when it occurred.

Katie Couric was talking to Sen. Edward Kennedy on the set when she said, “Oh, look there’s a fire at the World Trade Center.”

Looking out a big picture window out of their set, you could see the fire.

It was high on the side of the North Tower and small. The duo said something to the effect of it’ll be a big job for the fire department.

They both went back to the interview at hand and I went off to the newspaper to begin the day.

It was September 11, 2001.

Before I was to head out to The Cove Restaurant in Lexington to meet my coffee group at 8:30 a.m. our time, the second plane had struck the South Tower.

The discussion at the coffee table centered around the Twin Towers as news was spreading fast that airplanes had struck the two skyscrapers in New York City.

One of the members of the group that day was former resident Micky Marsee.

I recall Micky saying that they will probably have to tear those buildings down due to the destruction  the two planes, loaded with fuel, had done.

The planes had been hijacked by Islamic jihadists on suicide missions to kill Americans.

On the way across the Canadian River I kept thinking about what Micky had said and said to myself, “surely they won’t have to tear them down.”

Turned out, we didn’t have to tear them down.

I still get a sick feeling in my stomach when I think about those buildings collapsing and thinking about the poor people, both civilians and first responders.

To think people were actually jumping out of windows from up to 80 stories high sums up how bad the conditions were in that building.

The Pentagon was also hit where 184 people died.

Another 40 were killed in Pennsylvania on Flight 93 that was believed to be headed toward The United States Capital or the White House.

That flight was taken over by heroic passengers who had heard about the Twin Towers.

In all, at least 3,707 people were killed from civilians in the buildings to military personnel to firefighters, other first responders, flight crews and medical personnel.

Thousands of people have died since the attack from the toxic dust that settled over New York City in the aftermath of the collapse of the 110 story Twin Towers and the surrounding 47 story building.

Our family had just been to the Windows on the World restaurant on top of the North Tower some 30 months earlier on a Spring Break trip.

We had seen how massive the structures were.

Tragic day, 9/11, for the United States of America.