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story233.xml

born-digital

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2002-03-12

Dear September 11 Digital Archive:

The following is the text of an e-mail I sent to some old high school friends on September 26, 2001. We had all attended Livonia (Michigan) Stevenson High School in the mid-1970s (I'm currently 43 years old). We had assembled at a Yahoo Group organized to mourn and commemorate one of our own--Josh Rosenthal--who perished in the World Trade Center tragedy (he was a senior vice president of a mutual fund with offices in one of the towers). The following e-mail reprints and summarizes the various e-mails I had sent to various people over the preceding two weeks:

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----- Original Message -----
From: James Kobielus
To: Yahoo Groups Livonia Stevenson
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 9:28 AM
Subject: [livoniastevenson] fyi How This Terrorist Tragedy Has Impacted me on Several Levels

All:

Many of us are experiencing trauma on many levels from these attacks. For me personally, Josh's death was certainly the most devastating news from these incidents.

My personal experiences with this crisis are best told through a sequence of e-mails I sent the week before last (in chronological order):

*************

September 11, 2001 9:47am

(to my colleagues at The Burton Group)

All:

Regarding this bombing at the Pentagon just a moment ago...I was watching the TV right outside my office to follow the World Trade Center incident (which I saw mentioned on Yahoo), when I heard what was clearly a substantial explosion in the distance...I'm keeping my windows open because it's (otherwise) such a lovely day..my house is ten miles due south of the Pentagon, and only two miles away from some major noisy highway construction work...I immediately knew this sound did not come from the highway construction work...the moment I heard it, I had a weird feeling in my gut..then the people came on the news talking about an explosion at the Pentagon..I said to myself "my god!".

Jim

*************

September 11, 2001 6:53pm

(to many people in the US, Europe, and Asia)

Dear Family and Friends:


This is a quick e-mail to assure you that we're all safe (but shaken up) after this morning's attack on the Pentagon by a terrorist-hijacked plane. Obviously, there's chaos right now in the DC area, with many roads closed and all forces on highest alert.


At around 9am, I was listening to the TV news on the World Trade Center attacks when, with my window open on this (otherwise) calm lovely day, I heard a distinct boom in the distance (we're 10 miles due south of the Pentagon). At that point, in the 30 seconds before the local news came on to tell us what went down, I had a weird queasy feeling in my stomach (on top of the weird queasy feeling from the NYC news). Needless to say, my planned consulting trip to Wall Street for next Monday-Tuesday has been canceled. Overtaken by catastrophe.


Quite a shock to the collective nervous system. September 11, 2001--another date that will live in infamy. Brace yourselves for a nasty aftermath.


Jim

*************

Thursday, September 13, 2001 3:56pm

(to Susan Collins, my longtime editor at Network World)

Susan:

I've never done this before. But could Network World please publish the attached "special column" ASAP (in the next week or two--or perhaps on Network World Fusion today)? I've written it as an open letter to President Bush and other senior US officials, proposing a simple suggestion for making free emergency 911 calling on commercial airlines mandatory as a means of stopping hijackings in real time and notifying the US airforce of the need to intercept stolen aircraft before it can hit other commercial and government buildings.

Publishing this would be an incredibly important public service. Once you read it, I think you'll agree.

Thanks for your consideration.

Jim

(KOBIELUS AFTERNOTE: The following column was published the very next morning, Friday September 14--me serving my country as best I can--an analyst aiming sharp analysis at the enemy):

OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH AND OTHER SENIOR US OFFICIALS:

REQUIRE FREE, INFLIGHT EMERGENCY 911 AS HIJACKING COUNTERMEASURE

Dear President Bush:

We need to use our American ingenuity to address future terrorist threats along the lines of the horrific incidents we just experienced at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

With that in mind, I?d like to propose mandatory regulations on US commercial air carriers, and on foreign carriers in US airspace, that can help us to interdict and resolve air piracy incidents while they?re occurring. These regulations would supplement other measures that airports, airlines, and other organizations use to prevent such incidents before they can occur.

The idea is this: All commercial aircraft over US airspace should be equipped at all times with the feature of allowing free, emergency 911 calling by all passengers from all seatback "airphones." Most new commercial airlines come equipped with these phones in all seat rows, and many older aircraft have been retrofitted with them. We shouldn?t have to rely on people bringing their private cellphones on commercial aircraft with the hope that they can place calls from the phones in flight from 30,000 feet and 500-700 mph over every niche of US airspace. Not everybody has private cellphones, and we wouldn?t want to entrust something as important commercial aviation security to a communications tool that may not always be available when we truly need it. Besides, in-flight calling on terrestrial cellular systems is not always feasible, since their signals often don?t have universal coverage, or the speed at which calls are handed off from cell-to-cell at 500-700 mph would increase the likelihood of disruptive or failed call handoffs.

If every passenger on a commercial aircraft over US airspace can count on using their seatback airphones for free in hijacking emergencies, you have increased the number of "real-time reporters" who can contact authorities-especially, the US air force-who can take measures to intercept a runaway aircraft before it can target commercial and/or government buildings. Also, you will have plenty of information on the perpetrators that can be used to prosecute them after the incident.

This is not a difficult or expensive remedy to implement. The airphone carriers can implement it in a heartbeat through a simple reprogramming of their billing systems. The airlines would certainly welcome any measure that allows passengers to report hijacking incidents immediately in cases where pilots and crews are incapacitated. Similarly, if potential hijackers know they are being reported to authorities in real time, they might think twice about pulling stunts like these criminals got away with on September 11.

I suspect that all civilized nations will want to follow our lead and make such regulations mandatory. But somebody needs to lead the way, and that should be the United States. The present pain is ours, and the world?s waiting for us to take the initiative without delay.

Please consider this suggestion closely. It would make a huge difference in our ability to stop this madness, and in our ability to make our friendly skies friendly once again.

Sincerely,

James G. Kobielus

*************

Friday, September 14, 2001 4:23pm

(to people I knew/loved in college in Michigan)

Dear Friends:

A modest proposal just conceived yesterday and published today. Amazing what a good idea and good timing can do.

Point your browsers at:

http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2001/0914kobielus.html

Please read this proposal and its full context with all nuances. I'm not addressing the total universe of all possible threats. Just the shit we had to endure three days ago.

The genesis for this idea was quite straightforward. It came to me yesterday almost as a "play on numbers":

--The attack came on 911

--The solution is 911

More to the point, I was presenting to the other Burton Group analysts a proposal for my next report, on mobile application architectures. In the discussion, somebody mentioned the various roles of cellphones in this tragedy--both on board the hijacked planes and on the ground in the emergency-response effort.

My mind quickly turned to the only phone that would be available to me, as a passenger who doesn't own a cellphone, in such an incident.

The open letter to Bush just flew out of me in no time.

This is my shortest turnaround ever (in my 15 years of writing for Network World) between submitting a column and having it published.

Thanks for your consideration.

Jim

P.S. Here's a fuller personal perspective on this situation as it developed, per an e-mail I sent to some British musicians yesterday morning (KOBIELUS AFTERNOTE: referring to Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt of Everything But the Girl, but also sent to Stuart Moxham, Alison Statton, and Spike Williams of Young Marble Giants, Gist, and Weekend):

Thanks for the word of sympathy.

I'm in the Washington DC area. Fortunately, I'm

unharmed, and none of my family and friends were

impacted by these tragedies directly. But many others

weren't so lucky. I suggest we all, in our own ways,

say a prayer for the souls of those who lost their

lives. And also for the souls of those responsible for

these mass murders. May the former rest in God's

eternal love. May the latter meet the harsh justice

they so richly deserve, and may it be it be swift and

certain here on earth. I should point out that this is

the first time in NATO's history when the alliance has

activated the provision of collective retaliation

against foreign attacks to any one member.

Just as every American of a certain age remembers what

they were doing when JFK was assassinated, and of

another age when they heard of the Japanese attack on

Pearl Harbor, this day--September 11, 2001--is now a

bomb crater in every living American's life story. I

want to give you a sense for the developing situation

as I experienced it on Tuesday morning.

I work from my home in northern Virginia, 10 miles due

south of the Pentagon. My wife had already arrived at

her job in DC, and my kids at their schools near our

house. I was alone in the house. As I was sipping my

morning tea, I saw on Yahoo the original news report

about the first plane crashing into the first WTC

tower. I immediately went over and switched on the TV

near my office. I had all my windows open, since it

was such a cool, calm, lovely morning. I'm sitting

viewing the live TV feed from NYC, when I heard a

clear and distinct boom in the distance. We live in a

noisy area, due to ongoing highway construction, but

this was clearly something else entirely.

About 30 seconds later, the local DC newspeople came

on and said something had happened at the Pentagon.

That sent the creepiest feeling crawling up and down

my spine. As details came in of the extent of

destruction there, I knew that this clearly must be a

coordinated terrorist attack. In the panic and

confusion, the local news also reported a story that

thankfully turned out false: that the State Department

building had been hit by a car bomb.

Fairly soon thereafter, the federal government

suspended all civil air traffic indefinitely. Around

noon, I couldn't take any more of the news. I got out

and drove down the road to buy a new mouse for my

computer (the old one had lost its fine precision

pointing capability and was adding unnecessarily to my

frustration and jitters). Driving down to the computer

store, what I saw was a long line of military

helicopters headed due north to the Pentagon. That was

chilling sight.

One of my younger brothers called from Michigan to see

if "martial law" was in effect in the DC area. I told

him there's no such thing as "martial law" per se in

the US, but all authorities were clearly visible and

on highest alert.

My youngest brother called from southern California to

let me know his company--an aerospace firm--had

evacuated its offices near Los Angeles International

Airport (the scheduled destination of a couple of the

hijacked flights). We agreed that this was a pivotal

moment in American history, and that the aftermath

will certainly be grim. He urged me to send e-mails to

all of our family and friends, which I promptly did.

And I received prompt responses from many who were

glued to their TVs.

My sister-in-law in the Netherlands (who doesn't have

a computer) called soon thereafter to see if we were

OK. Her English is not good, so I explained the

situation in her native Indonesian, and told her to

tell everybody back in Jakarta that we're OK. Just a

few years before, we called them to make sure they

were OK (they're Chinese ethnics) during the race

rioting in Jakarta that attended the overthrow of

Suharto.

My older brother works for the federal government

right across the river from the Pentagon, and he

commutes to his job through a bus/subway connection at

the Pentagon. I immediately worried about his safety,

and also how/when he would get home. My wife I knew

was all right up in northwest DC, but again I worried

about how she would get home, as police had closed the

main north-south highway--I-395--which goes right by

the Pentagon.

But that's nothing compared to tragedy that has

befallen our area. They're still digging out the

rubble at the Pentagon, and have yet to recover most

of the dead victims. It's estimated up to 800 people

lost their lives in the Pentagon area adjacent to the

helipad. And one of the hijacked planes originated

from Washington Dulles airport, and it had many local

residents on board.

Many of our neighbors are in the US defense

establishment, and many work in and around the

Pentagon. We still don't know the extent of the

neighborhood-level tragedy. Soon after the attack, one

of my daughter's friends received a call at school

from her parents, both of whom work at the Pentagon,

assuring her that they were both safe. However, the

elementary school principal refused on Tuesday to tell

students what had happened, telling them they should

go home and "watch it on TV." Naturally, nervous

anxiety gripped all the kids. When my daughter got

home, I had to stop everything and fill her in on all

the details. And try to calm both of our nerves.

Fortunately, my brother and wife made it home pretty

much on time that day. We were all in total fucking

shock, and watched TV till we couldn't take it any

more. Seeing as how our daughter is a nervous sleeper

under the best circumstances, we felt it best to let

her sleep with her mom that night, while I struggled

with my insomnia in the guest room.

But I was impacted indirectly by the larger

catatastrophe in NYC. For one thing, I had to cancel a

consulting trip I had planned to Wall Street for this

coming Monday-Tuesday. Soon after the WTC collapses,

my client sent me an e-mail to tell me they're OK, but

with the pandemonium we can safely assume that the

technology workshop I was going to teach is postponed

indefinitely. Chillingly, if I had scheduled the

workshop just one week earlier, as the client

originally suggested, I would have been in the middle

of this. I had a reservation at the Millennium Hilton,

which is right across from (the remains of) the WTC,

and which is right now teetering on the edge of

collapse itself.

Also, we had two salespeople on the ground in lower

Manhattan on Tuesday morning. Fortunately, they are

both all right and were able to send e-mails telling

us so. (KOBIELUS AFTERNOTE: Our VP of sales, Doug Allinger, had been attempting to schedule a meeting with prospective clients, Thor Technologies, in WTC Tower 2, 87th floor, for 9am the morning of September 11. Fortunately for him, the people he was attempting to meet were in California that day. The meeting never happened. Thor was annihilated (I haven't heard how many of their other employees stayed home and perished that day).

And here's yet another unsettling twist. Last week,

our company president was telling us about a software

company he visited recently in NYC. He was impressed

with their products and strategies. "And they have

such a great view--they're in the World Trade Center."

That thought has stayed with me through the whole

tragedy. This company, and their name escapes me, was

probably trapped and annihilated in the building

collapses. Psychologically, I've felt like I'm at the

center of both of these catastrophes.



I'm sure many other people have similar stories of how

the events affected them directly or indirectly. I

just thought you'd like to get one American's

perspective. I know many Londoners have tales to tell

of New York friends and colleagues who lost their

lives or loved ones, and who also fear for their

safety from terrorist-hijacked commercial

airline/missiles.

All my warmest.

Our goal should not be to get everybody in the world to love and revere Americans and US culture. Everybody's somebody's devil, and they'll hate you for what you are, with the only solution, in their minds, being your death.

Under such circumstances, our goal should be to neutralize the possibility of hijackers commandeering commercial jet aircraft and repurposing them as missiles targeted at US buildings. With that tactical objective in mind, we can find effective countermeasures.

We should leave matters of the soul aside and just focus on protecting our bodies. There's a time for every purpose.

*****************

All for now.

Love and courage, folks.

Your steady correspondent,

Jim

********************************************

And that's the end of my submission, re my personal experience of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

James Kobielus
Alexandria, Virginia