CityView Magazine

I never dreamed that I would live through yet another earth-shattering event that would sear into my long-term memory my exact location, what I saw and my most detailed thoughts at the very moment the horrific events occurred. Navigating Chaos A CityView writer looks back on his experiences in D.C. on 9/11 | BY JASON BRADY I 'm old enough to remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when it was announced that Presi- dent John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas. I never dreamed that I would live through yet another earth- shattering event that would sear into my long-term memory my exact location, what I saw and my most detailed thoughts at the very moment the horrific events occurred. On the morning Sept. 11, 2001 I was on Capitol Hill with a delegation from Fayetteville for the annual U.S. Chamber of Commerce meeting with Congress. I had just reached for a second cup of cof- fee during an early morning briefing by Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Joe Lieberman when Fort Bragg Garrison Commander Tad Davis' cell phone gave off a shrill chirp. He grabbed it out of his brief case and left the room. Moments later Lieber- man interrupted himself during a story about his father owning a liquor store in New Jersey and announced that an air- plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Within seconds a congressional staffer updated him and Lieberman told 54 | September/October • 2011 the audience in the Canon Building that a second airplane crashed into the World Trade Center and a third into the Penta- gon. He urged everyone to evacuate the building. I grabbed Col. Davis' briefcase since he had not returned and our delegation left through one of the side doors. Outside the building, thousands of people came pour- ing out of the various Congressional Of- fice buildings just across from the Capitol. We parlayed about what we should do. Fay- etteville Chamber of Commerce employee Darrell Vickers said he would try to reach Union Station where he had parked our van. Others decided to hail a cab and get back to the hotel. We packed the cab quickly, with some having to sit on others' laps. I helped one lady into the cab, handed Col. Davis his briefcase and then closed the door of the cab, and it sped off, leaving me stranded. I watched the cab drive off through the throng of people who had spilled into the roadway and thought that I had just made one of the dumbest decisions of my life. I tried to get my bearings and decide how to get back to my hotel, the Crown Plaza on 14th and K Streets. I was facing north towards Independence Avenue when I noticed a thick plume of dark metal-gray smoke some distance away to my left. I later learned that was where the airplane had crashed into the Pentagon. Looking at a strip map, I determined my hotel would be on the far side of the Capitol Plaza, but police had set up roadblocks everywhere and rather quickly and there was no way across. My only option was to skirt the entire plaza and head north onto K Street and, from there, try to find my hotel. That's when I took stock of what was going on around me. The first thing I no- ticed was all the people staring in disbelief at their cell phones. Apparently, no one's phones were working but people kept try- ing. I also noticed that many of the female employees were in stocking feet because it made walking easier on the uneven bricks in the older sidewalks south of the con- gressional office buildings. As I skirted the plaza, I saw fighter jets circling overhead, eerily low for that part of the city. I also spotted police, or

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