In memory of everyone who died that day, and especially Todd Weaver — a friend from junior high school, who died in the South Tower, the second tower hit and the first to fall. He lived about a half mile from my dad’s house here in Ohio, where I write this now.
I ran the Mall 4-5 days a week when I worked in DC in the early 2000s.
Particularly on sunny, gorgeous days like Sept. 11, 2001.
It was an exciting, easy route to run. Flat, history everywhere. A great run most days. Even saw VP Cheney in his limo near the Washington Monument on Sept. 10.
Typical route: down K Street to Pennsylvania Avenue toward Capitol Hill, past the Reflecting Pool, down the Mall to Lincoln, up the steps, then along the river past the D.C. War Memorial — a small domed monument for the 499 D.C. residents killed in World War I.
Down toward Jefferson, back up the hill toward the White House, and up to K Street again.
I’d always stop for a second to look at the DC WWI memorial, though. Back then it was buried in weeds and half-forgotten.
Forgotten history is interesting history.
It always struck me as strange and a little sad. World War I seemed like the forgotten stepbrother of World War II. But tens of millions of people died in that war — before military tactics had caught up to our ability to kill each other so efficiently.
Based on the photo I found below, it has been fixed up since.
That once-neglected memorial was a regular stop for me most mornings before I kept running down the Potomac. The only memorial on the National Mall dedicated specifically to DC residents.
Six, seven, eight miles most mornings.
Every time I bounded up the Lincoln steps, I’d pause at the top, hands on my hips, and look up at him. I always read the words carved above his head: “In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.”
Always liked those words, and I read them most mornings.
That day, I ran the same route. Up the Lincoln steps, then along the river towards Jefferson.
Maybe a minute or two before the explosion, I heard a plane low overhead.
Didn’t think anything of it. I’d heard that a hundred times before. Reagan National was a couple miles downriver.
A few minutes later, running straight ahead under a clear blue sky, after 9 am…
I saw the mushroom cloud rise over the trees. It seemed small. A second later…WHUMP.
I didn’t realize that I was looking at the Pentagon; the trees obscured the low building. Learned later I was probably three-quarters of a mile from the wall the American airliner hit, maybe closer to a full mile.
The fireball and smoke rising off it were probably 200 feet high or more, by other accounts from that morning. Seemed smaller a mile away.
I was dumbfounded for 10 seconds.
There’s some kind of scientific phenomenon, I think, when something is shocking enough, out of the normal enough, your brain just freezes. You see it, you hear it, but you can’t actually process it. A few seconds later, back to reality.
First coherent thought…
Gotta be a film shoot or TV show.
I’d been running that route for a couple of years. Seen them filming The West Wing behind the Capitol, and a movie or two along the Mall before. It didn’t seem impossible.
Then a woman about fifty feet away, another jogger, screamed. That’s what snapped me back. “What the fuck is happening?” I said. Or maybe I just said, “What the fuck.” Don’t remember.
Then the sirens started. One, distant. Then another. Then another. Then dozens. Hundreds?
Within a minute or two, the whole District was a wall of sirens. Never heard the like, before or since.
I kept running up the river and saw a uniform running and closing off the road over the bridge toward the Pentagon. He yelled at me, “NYC is being attacked too. Terrorism.”
I remembered seeing that small plane that had hit the WTC on TV when I left the building gym. My heart sank.
Smartphones were a decade away, so I knew nothing else.
Stood there, baffled.
What was I gonna do?
Ran back to my office on K Street, like any day.
Just another run as chaos erupted around me in DC. Ambulances and military vehicles racing. Sirens echoing. Every federal worker was already out on the street. Women crying, men cursing.
Surreal with me sweating in my running clothes, running by like another Tuesday as the city locked down around me.
My building was a ghost town on K Street. I think I was the only one in it — everyone else had been sent home. I knew the Metro would be chaos, so I stayed and read what I could online for a few hours.
I called my dad to let him know I was okay. He told me he’d seen the towers come down on TV. He was upset — not something I was used to seeing from him.
I went home late in the afternoon. National Guard troops were loitering everywhere, bristling with machine guns, military vehicles all over the city. Metro was dead silent.
The yellow line train ran straight past the Pentagon stop without stopping. I got home and watched the news.
A day not forgotten.
Twenty-five years later, I don’t think about it daily anymore. Just more around the anniversary.
Funny. My reaction depends on whether I’m thinking about it or speaking about it.
As I dictated this article’s first draft, my voice started to crack.
Like that beautiful, sad late summer day was yesterday.
If this resonated with you, I'd be glad to hear your own memory of that day, in the comments or on X@pastpassport.
Thanks for sharing that, Joseph. It brought up where I was that day and how I felt.