Des Moines Register
09-10-06
The day that changed us all
By REID FORGRAVE
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Do you remember where you were when you first heard?
Toby O’Berry remembers; how could he ever forget? He looked up toward the
burning tower and the people leaping from it, then heard a plane rumbling across
the picture-perfect blue Manhattan sky.
And then he ran.
Judy White remembers, too. She was at the 801 Grand building in downtown
Des Moines when she heard that a plane had hit the Pentagon, where her
stepson, Lt. Col. Wes White, worked. She rushed home to be with her husband.
They waited for hours without word from Wes. We must pray he’s alive, Judy
thought, even as her husband became convinced his son was dead.
Chris Tinley was driving from his Council Bluffs home to his law office nearby.
His wife called and told him about the smoke and flames pouring from the World
Trade Center. Fifteen minutes later, his sister called. Their older brother, Mike,
was in New York on business, she said. He was on the 100th floor of the World
Trade Center, she said. Chris turned on the television and watched planes
slamming into the buildings. There’s no way Mike could have survived that blast,
Chris thought.
Kathy Dudley was at Iowa Lutheran Hospital, giving birth to her first child, a
beautiful blond-haired girl. Madalyn Dudley was born at 8:32 a.m., just after the
second plane hit the twin towers. A nurse told them of the attacks. I’ve just been
given this blessing, this innocent new life, Kathy thought, and you’re telling me
the world is going to end?
Five years later, we all remember the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
And we were all changed by them, too.
“There’s a phenomenon called flash-bulb memory,” said Craig Anderson, a
distinguished professor of psychology at Iowa State University who cowrote a paper on attitudes toward war and violence after the attacks. “There are
certain events that get almost photographed in your memory because they are so
salient and striking. Almost everyone ... realized this was a real turning point in
terms of world history.”
But for Iowans personally touched by the attacks, it’s no surprise they now look
at life differently.
“For people who are in near-death sort of events, people who have family
members killed in an accident or something like 9/11, one healthy reaction over
time can be a greater appreciation for life and a greater appreciation for family
members and friends,” Anderson said.
Toby O’Berry had been living in New York two years on the morning everything
changed. The Iowa-raised young man had stayed up late the night before, slept
through his alarm, and was running late to his job with investment bank Morgan
Stanley on the 56th floor of the south tower.
On the subway, a scruffy man shouted the World Trade Center had been hit by a
plane. Crazy homeless guy, Toby thought.
Then Toby saw the north tower burning. People rushed away, but Toby went the
opposite way, toward the atrium between the towers. Pieces of the building’s
facade fell as close as 20 feet away. Toby watched people falling from the
burning building, some setting off car alarms as they struck the ground.
Then he heard a rumbling sound. He looked up and saw a plane smash into the
south tower. All my co-workers, they’re all dead, Toby thought. Then he turned
and ran, shaking people out of their stupor along the way.
By the time he’d reached home after noon, 15 frantic messages filled his
answering machine. He finally reached his parents. “Oh babe, oh babe,” his
mother cried. “You’re OK!”
Toby vividly remembers every detail from 9/11. His blue polo shirt that reeked of
soot. The hundreds of high-heeled dress shoes discarded by fleeing
businesswomen. His relief at learning only six of 3,700 Morgan Stanley
employees had died in the towers. The loneliness of the days afterward. Rarely,
though, does he talk about that day.
“It’s not something you bring up all the time,” Toby said. “When it is brought up
and people realize I was there, they are spellbound and have 50 questions to
ask.
“And whenever someone hears I was there, people want to tell me where they
were that day. Even if it was like they were getting a rental car in Phoenix.”
For months, Toby had nightmares of the people jumping from the twin towers.
Alone in New York, he missed his girlfriend, who was living abroad. Within seven
months, the two moved back to Iowa.
And yet he’s glad he was there that morning.
“It helped make me who I am,” said Toby, who later married his girlfriend and
now works as a portfolio analyst for Principal Real Estate Investors. “I really
appreciate life. It was a good thing to go through.”
DAY OF TERROR BRINGS RANGE OF EMOTIONS
The events of that morning are etched into all Iowans’ minds, as they are for
every American.
It was 7:45 a.m. in Iowa when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the north tower.
At 8:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the south tower.
At 8:43 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 hit the outer ring of the Pentagon.
The south tower collapsed at 9:05 a.m. United Flight 93 crashed in a field near
Shanksville, Pa., at 9:10 a.m.
At 9:28 a.m., the north tower collapsed.
In less than two hours, a perfect late-summer day turned into the defining event
in modern American history.
What followed was shock. Then numbness. Then anger. Then fortitude. Then
hope.
Then, finally, it all became a page in history.
But for those Iowans with deep, personal connections to that day, Sept.11, 2001,
stays with them in everyday life.
It has made some realize that terrorism is something that can happen in our
backyards, and that the United States must do everything in its power to keep
terrorism away.
It has made others feel exploited by their own government, their loved ones’
deaths wrongly cited as a reason to invade Iraq.
But if there’s one lesson to be taken from these Iowans whose lives collided with
the terrorist attacks, it’s this: Never, ever, take life for granted.
Because, just like that, everything can change .
FOR SOME, ANXIETY TURNS TO DESPAIR
Reality soon set in.
During her maternity leave, Kathy Dudley sat at home and watched television.
Depressing — everything was so depressing. What she would give to see a soap
opera! But as she talked about the attacks with her husband, Shane, they saw
another powerful narrative from that day, a narrative they would tell their
daughter, Madalyn, when she was old enough to learn what happened the
morning she was born. They saw those who laid down their lives for another, the
ultimate sacrifice. Thinking of the images of man helping man, of a country
coming together, the Dudleys decided Sept. 11 was a day of hope.
As Nadia Igram watched planes hitting the twin towers, she was as shocked and
appalled as any other student in her Cedar Rapids high school. But, wearing her
head scarf as an observant Muslim, she immediately knew the accusatory looks
would soon point toward her and her religion. From students and strangers, she
fielded dirty looks and lewd gestures.
Judy White, after seven hours of worry on Sept. 11, finally learned the fate of her
stepson. Lt. Col. Wes White had left his Pentagon office after hearing of the
Manhattan attacks and was in a different part of the building when the plane hit.
His cell phone didn’t work, and he hitched a ride back to his suburban home.
Their family was relieved, but soon they would prepare for another wave of
anxiety: Both Wes and Judy’s son, Jon Stephens, would be heading to war in
Iraq.
Chris Tinley’s family wasn’t so fortunate. The more he watched television that
Tuesday morning, the more his initial fears became what actually transpired: His
brother had died on the 100th floor without knowing what hit him. Chris began the
sad, tedious job of tending to the estate and comforting his brother’s two
daughters.
For Jean Cleere of Newton, that day made her realize how fleeting life can be.
When she arrived for work at Maytag Corp. that morning, there was a message
from her husband, who was staying at the World Trade Center Marriott Hotel that
connected the twin towers.
“I was sitting in my hotel room, just getting ready to go over to the World Trade
Center, and a large jet plane has crashed into the center,” Jim Cleere said on the
message. “It’s lucky I wasn’t over there, because I could easily have been right in
the section that got hit. ... Just want to let you know I’m OK.”
He called back. She answered. He said he was OK and was coming home.
That was the last time Jean Cleere heard her husband’s deep baritone voice.
For days, she clung to the hope he’d lived. For weeks and months, she clung to
the hope that his remains would be identified. None have ever been found.
Then, in a Time magazine article, she read about an emergency medical
technician who helped an injured man in the Marriott Hotel shortly after the
planes hit.
His description matched Jim’s: a big man, 6-foot-3 and more than 300 pounds.
Jean Cleere tracked down the man, Kevin Burns, who confirmed he’d been with
Jim and who told the family about Jim’s last moments.
Somehow, Jim had injured his leg, and Burns was treating him when the south
tower fell, crushing half of the hotel. The two survived, got out of the rubble and
saw a light to the north. They headed that way amid chunks of broken glass. A
firefighter asked Burns to find a stretcher for Jim. As Burns searched, the north
tower fell, killing Jim, the firefighter and countless others. Burns escaped.
For years, Cleere was angry at Osama bin Laden. She was angry there was no
cemetery plot to visit. She quit her job. She became depressed.
But amid the whirlwind of emotions, she clung to one — hope.
“We just said, 'Your will be done,’” said Cleere, who attends First Lutheran
Church in Newton. “Our prayer was, 'No matter how it turns out, God will get us
through it.’ Because I am a Christian, I know we will be together again .”
FIREFIGHTER NEVER FORGETS GROUND ZERO
In the days after Sept. 11, New Yorkers fled the city to stay with friends and
family elsewhere. Lower Manhattan became a ghost town, filled with military,
police, firefighters and little else.
It was that eerie atmosphere into which Iowa City firefighter Glenn Pauley flung
himself.
Pauley had firefighter friends out there. He had to help.
He left Thursday and arrived at a Queens fire station before dawn Friday. He was
given a flashlight, a helmet and firefighter pants. Soon, he was heading to ground
zero.
Pauley felt the ashy grit on his teeth. He was handed a shovel and told to help a
search and rescue team.
The smell — that’s what sticks with him today. The smell of burning metal and
concrete dust. The smell of corpses, rotting beneath the rubble volunteers were
frantically trying to remove.
Pauley spent much of the next 31/2 days underneath the rubble. Looking for
survivors or remains, he squeezed through holes the size of dinner plates that
opened into odd, cavernous voids. It was deadly quiet, with only the noise of
firefighters’ respirators.
“I saw how evil evil was,” he said. “It was terrible and frightening.”
It’s stuck with him, the images and smells and people of ground zero. What he
fears is that it hasn’t stuck with the rest of America.
“People of this country, their memory can be measured with an egg timer,” he
said. “They forget what it felt like that day. And what will tomorrow bring? Sept.
11 ... has been fed to us, overfed like baby food, and people kind of grew tired of
it. Of course we have to move on. But if we choose to completely ignore it, we’re
destined to repeat it.”
FAITH, FAMILY PROVIDE IOWANS WITH STRENGTH
For these Iowans so personally affected by the events that transpired that
morning, the long view of 9/11 has sent them in drastically different directions.
For Chris Tinley, whose brother died in the twin towers, the American reaction —
both domestically and internationally — has been ridiculous.
“Our family members have been made a reason we went into Iraq, to avenge the
death of our loved ones,” Tinley said. “It’s a pretty hollow excuse for what we’ve
done in Iraq.”
For Lt. Col. Wes White, the Sept.11 attacks brought terrorism to the forefront of
everyone’s minds. But in the military, he said, it was already in the forefront of his
mind.
“Almost an innocence was lost,” said White, who fought in Desert Storm and was
deployed to Iraq again last year. “You have to face the fact there’s a real enemy
out there that doesn’t like our way of life.”
But if there’s one thread connects all these Iowans, it’s this: The day made them
stronger.
Nadia Igram was at first angry at the rude remarks and gestures toward her or
her religion. But since Sept. 11, she has grown in her faith. There’s more people
to educate now, she said: “If your beliefs are under scrutiny, you want your
background to be even more firm.”
Jean Cleere has spoken at dozens of churches since the attacks. She tells
churchgoers her faith was the only thing that brought her through the death of her
husband.
On a recent day in her family’s east-side home, Madalyn Dudley, less than a
week away from her fifth birthday, built two towers out of wooden blocks. A toy
plane sat nearby. Her parents bought Madalyn a book about her birthday, titled
“One Nation: America Remembers September 11, 2001.” For her birthday this
year, she’s going to Chuck E. Cheese’s.
Madalyn, a bubbly, energetic girl who wants to be a ballerina, knows what
happened the morning she was born.
“An evil king sent planes into the buildings to knock them down because they
didn’t like God,” she said. “He wanted to hurt God’s feelings. But we’re safe here.
When me and my sister are older, we’re going to go over and get him.”
Kathy Dudley is now pregnant with the couple’s fourth child. She quit her job to
stay home with her children. Family is most important to them now, she said,
patting her pregnant belly .
The Dudleys want Madalyn to learn more about her birthday than the evil king
and the airplanes that knocked down the buildings. They want her to learn about
the Christ-like sacrifices made that day.
“You’re inspired to teach your kid to lay down your life,” said her father, Shane.
“That’s our principle in Christ, that no greater love has anyone that they lay down
their lives for their friends. That’s what happened that day. And I want Maddy to
grow up with that and learn that about America.
“That’s what I take from that day.”
*****
Reporter Reid Forgrave can be reached at (515) 284-8236 or rforgrave@
dmreg.com
These 9/11 victims were Iowans or former Iowans:
CRAIG AMUNDSON: He grew up in Anamosa and lived in Dubuque before he
moved to Washington, D.C., where he was posted at the Pentagon.
JIM CLEERE: He lived in Newton and worked for a West Des Moines insurance
company. He was at the World Trade Center for a meeting.
TIM HAVILAND: He was a former Ames resident who worked on the 96th floor of
the World Trade Center.
KAREN KINCAID-BATACAN: She graduated from Central College in Pella and
Drake Law School in Des Moines. She was on American Flight 77, which
crashed into the Pentagon.
MARI-RAE SOPPER: She graduated from Iowa State University, where she
was a gymnast. She was on American Flight 77.
SANDRA TEAGUE: She had lived in West Des Moines and graduated from Des
Moines University. She was on American Flight 77.
MICHAEL TINLEY: He had lived in Council Bluffs. He was working in the north
tower of the World Trade Center on the 100th floor that day, in town on business
from his home in Dallas, Texas.