My day of almost when

I never thought about America’s innocence with terrorism being shattered when I woke up in my Levittown, Pennsylvania home on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. 

I was on my way to New York City for a business meeting with three law enforcement friends of mine who worked for the New Jersey Port Authority. President George W. Bush was scheduled to take a trip to New York within the next few weeks. Our meeting was to talk about security arrangements aboard the President’s train into Penn Station in the city.

I was in the rail industry for most of my work career. I had worked my way through Miami University in the 1960s on the railroad. The railroad again became my vocation in the early 1970s when I returned from the Vietnam War.

On this particular Tuesday, my Port Authority police officer friends opted to have me pay for their breakfast at the restaurant at the World Trade Center (WTC). A year ago, I had lost a bet to them in a Philadelphia Eagles vs. New York Giants game – paying for breakfast at the WTC was my penalty. We agreed to meet at 7am because our meeting was scheduled back in Newark, New Jersey at 10am. I was on the early Amtrak train out of Trenton, New Jersey at 6:15am.

As we were approaching the Newark station going north, my pager went off. It was my boss with a change of plans. I was to gather some employees at Penn Station and go on to Stamford, Connecticut for a meeting prior to the new station opening up in a few weeks. So, I had to use my satellite phone to call my Port Authority friends to tell them I couldn’t make breakfast. There was naturally a lot of “trash talk” about this. They threatened to arrest me the next time they saw me.

I made the meeting at Stamford. In the middle of this meeting, one of my colleagues said that a plane had just crashed into the WTC. We all shrugged this off as another “scare” that was reminiscent of the bombing attack on the WTC a few years before.

We all headed back to New York on the next southbound train. The train came to a stop over the East River near the Hell Gate Bridge. It was then that my world started changing as we all witnessed the second plane striking the second building. 

One of my colleagues immediately said, “I think we are seeing a part of history that I don’t want to be a part of.”

Not since my battles in Vietnam had I felt the same lump in my throat. I pulled out a small journal I carried and started writing.

The scene in Penn Station, when we eventually pulled in, was as surreal as some of the scenes in “Apocalypse Now.” I was gripped with a numbness and, for awhile, I was unaware of everything that was going on around me. I called my office in Philadelphia, and my answering service was overwhelmed with messages from friends and family from all over the country. 

I started to cry when I heard the following message from a friend on the Santa Ana Indian Reservation in New Mexico say, “Hello Lee. We are thinking of you being on the East Coast in that horrible situation. We want you to know that if your home was damaged, you and Rosemary always will have a place to stay at Santa Ana.”

I realized that my wife, Rosemary, had to be frantic because she knew that I was in New York.

I used my satellite phone to call her elementary school in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Fortunately, the school secretary answered. I gave her 30 seconds of me being okay and I didn’t know when I would be home. I ended the call and burst into tears again.

At about 7am on Sept. 12, I got to my vehicle at a local train stop not far from my home. After a short drive (which I don’t remember), I walked into our home and embraced Rosemary.

My day on Sept. 11, 2001 was over. Yet, it will live with me forever. I write this i honor of and in memory of my friends, Chris Amoroso, Clinton Davis and Paul Laszcynski. I will buy their breakfast the next time I see them.

Lee Fisher is a Miami graduate, resident of Oxford, Ohio and a Vietnam War veteran.