I took my little one to 1st grade in the Harley Sidecar; it was a beautiful morning to be riding.  Afterwards, I went to Okauchee Post Office to check my PO Box, following my normal routine.  There, I ran into Keith, an Okauchee volunteer fireman who told me about the World Trade Center plane crash and he invited me around the corner to the firehouse to see the TV coverage.  By the time we arrived, the second attack had taken place leaving no doubt that a terrorist attack had been perpetrated.  It was interesting to listen to the few firefighters who were there talk about how they envisioned the rescue and how to put out the fire.  That the buildings would crumble and fall was not foreseen.

After a while I felt compelled to go home and did...about a 20-minute trip.  My wife and I watched in disbelief as the buildings fell.  It was early in the day.  My program didn't start for hours but I felt I had to be at WTMJ.  I felt I had to do something although I didn't know what.  In fact, everyone at WTMJ was doing a great job of coverage and THEY didn't really need me at that time, but I needed to be there so I left for the station.  I don't even remember one thing about what I did at WTMJ that day.  I just did my job as best I could, I guess.  That day at WTMJ was for reporting events.

Odd for me though, was that I had the rest of the week off because my little one had a surgery the next day at Children's Hospital, and I wanted to be available during her recovery time.  This, however, took me out of the journalistic environment and made me a spectator.  I was unfulfilled in that role, but I was also occupied with my innocent, little first grader's surgery and in protecting her from any concern about what happened to America that day.  Her recovery went well and that Saturday I had an opportunity to do a phone-in talk show about 9-11 for 3 hours.  I needed to be involved.  I benefited from the experience.  WTMJ's audience benefited from our talk shows on those days following 9-11.

Radio is the ultimate communicating experience.  It's us and you, the audience…unscripted, unrehearsed, and impromptu.  My goal is usually to make you laugh, but at times like this laughter is not appropriate.  At times like this we need each other, and radio provides the link.  I am gratified to be a part of it.

• We couldn't get into Manhattan. The bridges were closed. Everything was closed. We took the lone path train into the city. Manhattan was like a fortified castle - the drawbridge was raised. A hundred miles out we started seeing electronic highway signs reporting that New York was closed. New York was CLOSED! Like a school during a snow emergency.
• They came from all over. We saw the lines of firefighters and EMTs, lights flashing, snaking down the highways in the dark, on their way to New York to help dig, from Indian reservations of South Dakota, from small towns in Wisconsin.
• It was like The Day After. The smell of death - the odor of burnt hair almost - filled the air so thoroughly that I actually got used to it and forgot it was there, permeating everything. When I returned home, I realized that my reporter's notebooks still smelled of the crematoria that had been the WTC. The smell of those notebooks made me gag. A year later, I pulled them out of a drawer again in the newsroom, and I could still smell it. Collective death.
• The dust was literally everywhere for blocks around Ground Zero. Ashes...fine gray silt... covered everything. I developed a cough that I couldn't get rid of because the dust invaded my lungs. They are calling it 9/11 cough now, and sometimes I worry about what I breathed in. Everyone wore paper hospital masks, but we really weren't prepared and they weren't very good ones. Who knows what we were breathing in along with the dead.
• Cop cars that were burnt shells littered the streets. Dust covered them too, and signs of life interrupted – soda cups, slivers of papers - flitted around. People drew messages on the cars with their fingertips and tossed floral bouquets on their cracked windshields.
• The firefighters were so heroic. It's a cliche but true. They have a brotherhood - a real bond. They are salt of the earth. Every one of them seems to work a second or third job. They don't make any money doing this, being a firefighter. It's a calling and often a generational one. They could not stop digging. They were in slow motion almost, compelled to go back again and again to the dig site with no sleep for days. They were ethnic. Many were Irish. In New York, people aren't just American, they are IRISH-American, ITALIAN-American, etc. But in this, we were all just American again. They lost so many. Their basic nature was to help others, even at a time when they needed help because so much had been taken from them. They were still trying to take care of everyone else around them... that's why they became firemen in the first place. The firefighters were worried about ME,  just a lone reporter who wandered into their fire station four blocks from Ground Zero. They made sure I had something to eat, they gave me a cot for sleep, and they gave me hiking boots when it started to rain. They worried about me because they worry about everyone. They represent the American spirit.
• The city was a police state. It reminded me of being in East Berlin before the wall came down, but worse. It was a militarized zone. Sirens wailed constantly. Fire trucks and ambulances and cop cars rocketed down the almost empty streets. Police and soldiers milled around everywhere. Fighter planes whined overhead. We were under siege. Yes, the line between good and evil was very clear at Ground Zero.
• The people in the WTC were obliterated. They were literally turned to dust. I keep going back to it, but it was the most deeply disturbing thing about the entire experience: To be covered in cremated remains. Their dust covered us, lined our lungs, filtered into our hair, worked its way into the fibers of our clothes. They stared from the missing posters plastered everywhere, reminders that once this dust was thousands of people. Men, women, mothers, fathers, fiancees, spouses, restaurant workers, financial workers, people at conferences, tourists, you name it. All that was left of them was their imprint on photos... proof they once existed...and dust. Dust. They could have been any of us.
• Everyone pulled together. A grizzled cabbie gave me a ride for free. A New York cabbie! The firefighter gave me boots. Some random person handed me bottled water. And who was I? I wasn't digging. I wasn't a survivor. I was just some reporter. But it was that way then.
• I collapsed back at the hotel. The room was the size of a closet. It was a funky modern hotel where supermodels and designers stay. I couldn’t wait to get the clothes off - the boots from the firefighter, the slicker from the Salvation Army. I wanted to get as far away from Ground Zero as possible, but, in a way, I would learn five years later, you can never leave.
• There was a Korean immigrant man who owned a small grocery store right across from Ground Zero. The fruit outside his store... apples, oranges... ashes covered it too. He let the firefighters take what they wanted off his shelves. He stayed in the store, by the light of candles. Mostly the firefighters wanted beer.
• There was a firefighter who couldn’t go back to dig. He was too traumatized. He was almost killed in the collapse. He went to dig for survivors, and he couldn’t take it. The remaining buildings began shaking. So he stayed back in the firehouse taking care of everyone else. Another firefighter went home for a brief respite. He drove through multiple red stoplights before realizing he was doing it. These men will never be the same. And since they represent America, neither will we.
• The wreckage of the WTC was a snarled mess of enormous magnitude. It was hard to imagine they would ever finish cleaning it up. But the twisted metal was one thing. The piece of a scalp one of the firefighters found was another. He thought it was someone from a plane. It was on the roof of a nearby building.
• I remember being inside the WTC. I was 12, visiting New York with my aunt and mother. I remember looking down from the top floor and seeing the little matchbox cars and thinking the buildings were so tall it was like looking out of an airplane window. And people JUMPED from there.
• There was a restaurant a few blocks from Ground Zero with no customers inside, but the tables were set with gleaming wine glasses that would stay empty. Music played. The owner said he had to stay open. It was a statement. He knew no one would come. The restaurant was in the evacuated disaster zone. He set the tables anyway. The American spirit.
• A few blocks down, there was another restaurant. This one was filled with refugees - firefighters, construction workers, neighbors who didn't leave. It reminded me of Rick's Place in Casablanca for some reason. It was an oasis of laughter, life and normalcy for refugees caught in the middle of war and hell.
• The construction workers were the unsung heroes. They wore tiny flags on their yellow hats. They did the dirty work on the dig. They have been pretty much forgotten.
• There was a little church near Ground Zero. It is the oldest remaining public building in Manhattan and its only colonial church. George Washington came here to worship on his inauguration day in 1789. Somehow the little church survived again. It became a refuge for the rescue workers. It was a symbol. Rescuers also unearthed a piece of gnarled metal from the towers that looked like a cross. For a long time, it stood at the site. There were a lot of symbols.

That was then.  This is now. It’s five years later. So, what lessons have we learned? More importantly, more urgently, what lessons have we forgotten?

Then, we were all Americans. Ethnic and political divisions blurred. They didn’t matter.

Then, we were united in a singular determination: To never let this happen again. It didn’t matter who would get credit for it politically because we all knew what needed to be done. We needed to make sure that this could never happen again. We needed to fight to win, and we needed to fight the enemy, not ourselves.

Then, we recognized there was true evil in the world, and it wasn’t us. We recognized that some people aren’t just misunderstood. You can’t appease evil. And, yes, it has a face and name. Then, we actually knew we had an enemy. We recognized the enemy, and we weren’t confused about what to call him. We didn't try to argue that he just represented a different point of view.

Then, we knew we needed to improve our intelligence. We needed to have better surveillance, better communication, better security at the airports and borders, and better financial tracking of terrorists. We needed to do more, and we needed to do it better. We focused on that part of it. We wanted to win.

Then, we bonded together. In some ways, the area around Ground Zero was the most beautiful place I’ve ever been and also the ugliest – at once. But the ugly part belonged to our enemy and the beauty to us. The American spirit was so very alive there. Ground Zero represented America at its very best – united, full of resolve, pulling together, morally certain. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a strong sense of community or cause. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more a part of a whole.

Over the past five years, when it became clear that the road wouldn’t be easy, some people jumped onto the challenges and exploited them for political gain. Where once we were united, some have tried to divide us. Others forget how to win and even why we need to do so. They forget who we are fighting (even after all of the beheadings, even after all of this) and have decided we need to fight ourselves. Remember: The enemy doesn't do that.

No one will forget 9/11. More importantly, we can’t forget what 9/11 taught us.