The first plane hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. Those in the South Tower were told to remain in place.  Air was good.  But many offices evacuated. My brother-in-law was on the 60^th floor of the South Tower.  He quickly met with three colleagues at his firm and ordered the immediate evacuation of all of their offices. But the four of them stayed on the 60th floor . . . . .

The second plane slammed into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. Bob remembers it took perhaps a minute for the trembling of the Tower to stabilize. When it did, the four hit the stairwell and began hustling down. Two things remain in my mind from Bob’s recounting of that sad and traumatic morning. First – as they quickly descended the stairs — down around the 30^th floor, the four encountered two women struggling to go down stairs in high heels. Bob and the others stopped and told the women to remove their shoes – but keep them because of glass outside. In the heat of the moment, that had not occurred to them. They took off their heels and joined the dash down the stairs. It saved their lives.

The second remembrance was that down toward the bottom, young firefighters were going up the stairs. To help. To save others. And given that the South Tower went down first – at 9:59 a.m. – all those young men died. Bob and the others got out.

9/11 was a traumatic and painful flash in America’s journey. I was at my downtown Chicago office when the news broke.  Work ground to a stop as everyone huddled around a television. We later learned that one of my partners – Glenn Winuk – was working that day in our New York office which was at the base of the Twin Towers. Glenn had served as a firefighter and EMT with the Jericho, NY Fire Department.  When the North Tower was hit, Glenn left the office and raced out the door to help. He died in the collapse of the South Tower. Glenn was one of 343 firefighters who perished.