Reflections of a world-changing event, 25 years later

It's 25 years later as I sit writing this column on 9-11 and the events of that day and the ensuing emotions all come flooding back. The tears and the fears most certainly are there. So is the anger, the shock and the uncertainty of that day. But they aren't all negative emotions. The overriding emotion that I remember was the unity everyone felt. For days and days, it didn't matter whether you were blue or red, male or female, young or old — we all knew we were facing this tragedy, this battle together. Most of us can remember the important defining moments of our generation. For instance, I can remember being sent home from school the day President John F. Kennedy was shot. I can remember watching the Challenger explode, killing all its crew. Like everyone else of a certain age in the country, 25 years ago on Sept. 11, 2001, I experienced another truly life-defining event. Unlike the others, however, I believe Sept. 11th changed the world forever. Sept. 11th started out as a normal autumn day. Driving to work along Lake Huron in Michigan, I thought the bright blue sky was exceptionally beautiful that morning. Within a half hour I would see where that beauty only was an illusion, that the day would have a dark cloud forever hanging over it. Thirty minutes after beginning my day at The Alpena News, one by one downstairs office workers who had their radios playing rushed back to my office, sharing news of a plane that had crashed into the World Trade Center. Believing it to be a terrible accident, staffers and I went upstairs to the newsroom, where the only television was located. Remember, at this point the internet was still in its infancy and pretty much of no use from an informational standpoint. The newsroom was normally an area buzzing like a bee hive. The energy there is usually contagious. This morning it was anything but. People stood with their mouths aghast at what they were viewing. As tears formed on many faces, the newsroom was amazingly quiet. Together we watched in horror the smoke billowing out from the first tower of the World Trade Center. Compounding our fears, we then saw a second plane fly into the second tower. To this day, I can still hear the screams of several staffers. Then a third flew into the Pentagon. Minutes later the first tower in New York City collapsed, followed by the fourth plane crashing in Shanksville, Pa. It was a hellacious way to spend the first hour of a workday. It didn't take a rocket scientist to tell you the United States was under attack on its homeland and that life, as you knew it, was changing minute-by-minute before your eyes. While I knew this was going to be a defining moment like no other, I also knew that unlike previous moments, this time I was directly responsible for overseeing how the newspaper was going to cover this horrendous tragedy for our readers. Despite the incredible sense of fear, uncertainty and sadness that impacted everyone's emotions that morning, the editor in me needed to step up and begin managing as best I could this insanity that was unleashed in the world around us. At this point the adrenaline kicked in, and I began thinking of how our newspaper would cover the events. As the majority of our news staff did not begin work until the afternoon, the first thing was to call everyone in to work early. My wife Diane, who also was the newspaper's Lifestyles Editor, and I started to brainstorm local angles to news stories. We soon were joined by our managing and news editors who were called into work early as well. As I waited for newsroom staff, all my other managers were called into an emergency meeting in my office. There we discussed logistics for all the departments for the next 24 hours. We agreed to increase the number of newspapers we would print for our morning edition of Sept. 12. We discussed jumping up the number of pages for the edition, how deadlines from all departments would need to be met and how we could stretch the use of color on our press for the printing of that Sept. 12th edition. By this point, the reporters were in, so the newsroom's staff met next and reporters were assigned different angles to the events. Each had several stories to cover, from how to address a tragedy of this magnitude with your children to how the day's events impacted the Combat Readiness Training Center and the Air National Guard stationed locally. As an aside, the Alpena CRTC had training exercises going on at the base that day and was one of the only areas of the country with military aircraft already in the air that morning. The rest of the day was read, edit, wait or watch. We read the stories the reporters were filing. We made some initial edits of those stories. We waited for more angles to develop as this story was like an octopus that had seemingly unending tentacles. And we watched the television as updates kept unfolding. In the end we had a newspaper edition that was chalk full of local reaction, thoughts and commentary. I believe it would have rivaled any other newspaper in the world that next morning. It was a newspaper filled with tears and tragedy, but also one filled with hope and history. I was proud of my staff then, just as I am still proud of them today. My regret today isn't from our news coverage, but rather one that has come with the passage of time. I wish that the unity we all had felt initially after the events of the day had become a permanent part of our nation's fabric. Unfortunately, as time has passed, all that has disappeared. And I miss it dearly. Just as I commented the morning of Sept. 11, "the world would never, ever, be the same again." Bill Speer, who lives in Findlay, is the former publisher of The Alpena (Mich.) News. He can be reached at speers@chartermi.net.