story2026.xml

story2026.xml

born-digital

story

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2002-09-10

Having been in the intelligence community for the past thirty-seven years, and being a senior contract military intelligence analyst, I was aware and relatively up to speed on terroristic threats and the level of preparedness of the County on 11 Sept. One of my students came into the classroom at the beginning of class relating how one of the administration had a radio on and a report had come in stating that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I assumed immediately that some idiot in a Cessna had made serious judgment errors and crashed into one of the Towers. Then screaming from a nearby office told me that something worse perhaps was going on. We received the report that a second plane, a full scale jet, had just crashed into the Towers. I immediately realized at that moment that a terror attack was underway. From that point, everything went downhill. I was contacted by my office in Washington and placed on the highest alert status. I spent the day attempting to comfort the parade of students who passed through the classroom. Several faculty at the school consulted with me as to what to do and say, how to treat this terrible attack in class. It was an unfortunate event which I wish we had been fortunate enough to have prevented.

Paul J. Sanborn