The recent strife and turmoil between the Taliban and the Afghani people brings countless memories back for Tobin Beck.
Beck, a journalism and political science professor at Concordia University, was an executive editor for United Press International in Washington, D.C. during the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania.
He coordinated coverage amidst the confusion and chaos as the attacks were ongoing. Since 9-11, his work as a journalist and professor have connected him with Afghanistan natives, some of whom who have become close friends.
The scenes on the news of current day Afghanistan remind him of the months following the attack and the sentiments towards the Afghani people. He remembers a sense of unity mixed with fear then and thinks of friends from Afghanistan he's made since whose lives hang in a delicate balance.
“For me, this makes it very personal,” he said. “On 9-11, you had the Taliban in control in all of Afghanistan and being a refuge for Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda terrorists who hijacked the planes...with the Taliban back in control, that brings it full circle.
“It brings so many different things and emotions, but different thoughts about it, particularly what it means for democracy in general, our democracy in the United States but also the democracy that we tried to get started in Afghanistan that in some ways worked and some ways didn't.”
The day
On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda members hijacked four planes throughout the United States in an attack that killed 3,000 people throughout four locations.
The first plane, American Flight 11, hit the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 8:45 a.m. (eastern).
Beck recalls being later to work than usual that day and when he arrived in the office, he found an unimaginable scene.
“Normally, I would get in the office by 6:30 (a.m.), 7 at the latest. That particular day, I got delayed at home and didn't get in until a little after 9,” he said. “The first plane had hit the World Trade Center and we already had a bulletin out about that. Right after I got to the office, the second plane hit (the south tower of the World Trade Center) and then shortly after that, the other plane hit the Pentagon.”
Within the next hour, both the north and south towers of the World Trade Center had collapsed and the fourth plane crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania.
It was apparent that Beck and his staff were readying to cover the deadliest attack on American soil.
“In the newsroom, we did not know right away that the planes were commercial airliners and I remember thinking, 'One plane hitting the Trade Center might have been an accident, but two hitting them clearly seemed like some sort of a terrorist attack,'” he said. “That was evident right away.”
The timeline moved at a pace that tested Beck and his staff to react to new details that emerged each minute. At the height of the frenzy, the picture became clear and focused to Beck.
“I've only had this experience really a few times and most memorably, this morning covering 9-11, where time seems to slow down,” he said. “There's so much, it's so intense, you're right in the middle of it. Instead of panicking, all of a sudden, everything becomes crystal clear, everything is slowing down and you know exactly what you need to be doing.
“You're so intensely focused on something that everything seems to be in slow motion.”
The sensation stuck with Beck and years later, he had the opportunity to speak with former UPI Southwest Regional Editor Jack Fallon, who directed the coverage of the John F. Kennedy assassination.
“I told him my experience on 9-11 and asked if he had ever experienced that,” Beck said. “He said, 'Yeah, I did.'”
The feeling of clarity allowed Beck to prioritize the coverage and guide the focus of the stories to the look at the event itself, how the national would respond and the scope of the human tragedy in the three locations.
“As we were covering the story, we're thinking 'what is this, why is this?'” he said. “The story became as much about dealing with the immediate aftermath of the attacks and what that meant in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania but also what it meant to the government in that part of Southwest Asia and what we do now.”
Beck's wife, Ellen, who currently serves on the Seward City Council, had her own experience that day. She was on her way into downtown on the Blue Line and noticed smoke from where American Flight 77 had hit the Pentagon. The bus was just two stops from the Pentagon.
“The metro didn't go any further,” he said. “She went out and realized she wasn't going to get back downtown.
“There was a group from Canada and they were milling around. Ellen helped stop the tour bus to get the tourists heading back in the other direction because no one was going into the city at that point. You could tell it was something big.”
A visit to Ground Zero
The place where the World Trade Center once stood became known as Ground Zero following attack. Emergency responders worked tirelessly digging through the wreckage in the slim hope of finding survivors and the reality of recovering lost lives. Smoke and fires scattered the area days after the towers collapsed.
Beck had a chance to visit the site just 10 days after the attack with a crew from the New York Department of Environmental Control. What he noticed first was the environmental atmosphere of the area.
“One thing that struck me being there at Ground Zero was the air was still very dusty from the buildings collapsing,” he said. “There were still fires burning, so there was smoke. My sense of smell isn't very good, but that was very apparent to me.”
The next thing he noticed is how the grounds had become its own community for those who were working to sort through the rubble, people who gathered to provide relief to the workers and mourning family and friends of people who never left the grounds.
“There were how many hundreds of people at the site,” he said. “There were hundreds of people at the scene – police, fire, people from other agencies – who were working on going through the debris, recovering bodies, sifting through the debris. It was like a small town within a big city. It was like a war zone.”
He said the area was set up in zones, each one marked by crude signs that directed people around the scene.
“There were things like makeshift signs that were around the area that said things like, 'supplies, chapel, work station, medical examiner and morgue,'” Beck said.
And undeniably present, Beck said, was the overwhelming sense of grief and despair.
“I walked past a long wooden construction fence on which relatives and friends of people who had been in the Twin Towers had posted notes about their friends and loved ones,” he said. “People gathered in small groups in front of makeshift memorials, flowers, candles and stuffed animals.”
Beck's tour through the area gave him an idea of what the attack had done to the people of New York and how they would eventually respond as a city that would not be divided.
“What struck me most about this is instead of being brusk as is the reputation of New Yorkers and sort of hostile towards strangers, they were very open, sharing the sense of a grieving family and bringing out that sense of community,” he said.
The days since
In the years since 9-11, Beck has taken it upon himself to write additional articles looking back on the event and has shared his story with various groups throughout the area. He said it's his knack for storytelling and a love of explaining situations that aren't black and white.
“One of the reasons I went into journalism is because it's fun to explain things,” he said. “I feel that if I can help other people understand things in a way that's honest and accurate and helps them get a grasp on things, that's very satisfying.”
As a professor, he's had the chance to do that with his students, many of whom now have little to no recollection of the day. He said he feels it's his duty of his to share his experiences and show how important critical thinking is during an wide-ranging issue.
“The biggest duty I feel is to help students how to think and use critical thinking skills,” he said. “You have your faith, your beliefs but also, how do you look at things in the world, how do you know what's fact or not, how do you look at various sources and know what's fact or not...and how do you apply your beliefs and moral principles to that to decide what you're going to do?”
Sharing his stories, he said, allow him to revisit the time and reflect on the experiences he gathered during and after the attack. He said he often thinks about the day itself, but what sticks in his mind the most is the unity of Americans following the tragedy.
“Having been attacked like that, the high death toll and the shock of that, I remember how we responded as Americans, coming together and the sort of feeling of being united in tragedy and thinking of what are the things that make us Americans, what are the things that we stand for,” Beck said.
