Jay Frank Castle , Esq . Castle Health Law PLLC and Level Mediation LLC
SCBA NEWS
One lawyer ’ s recollection of 9 / 11 attacks
By JAY FRANK CASTLE , Esq . Castle Health Law PLLC and Level Mediation LLC
I
am writing this article in late August of 2021 . By the time it is published , the 20th anniversary of the 9 / 11 attacks will have come and gone . I ’ m sure there will be public memorials of this solemn event . I ’ m sure we will hear from folks who were injured or lost loved ones or who helped clean up and rebuild . I ’ m sure we ’ ll hear from others who will offer their expert opinions and perspectives about what it all means for us today .
I ’ m just a regular guy who lived far away from the actual events .
But I share this recollection because some of those memories are still vivid , and because we seem to be forgetting some of the lessons I thought we learned in the aftermath .
I was a litigation partner at a boutique real estate firm in Atlanta and business was booming . 12-hour days were the norm , not the exception . Lots of competing deadlines , hearings , depositions , document reviews and productions , etc . I came into the office early those days because I also had a family with young children , and I tried my best to get home in time to see them before bedtime .
This was before the internet had really taken off . Email was still a novelty for most lawyers . Our news was still delivered by newspapers and television . It all seems rather quaint now .
After my third or fourth cup of coffee , there was a rumbling in the office . I stuck my head out into the hallway and saw staffers scrambling to our conference room .
I followed them , and for the next couple of hours we sat transfixed as we watched the shaky footage on television — replayed over and over and over — of airplanes hitting the World Trade Center .
The WTC held a special place
in American culture . When they remade the “ King Kong ” movie in 1976 , the gorilla climbed the Twin Towers rather than the Empire State Building . Windows On The World , the restaurant atop the North Tower , was an epic , over the top New York dining experience reserved for the lucky few . The Twin Towers defined and rose high above the Manhattan skyline . EVERYONE knew these buildings .
At first , the talking heads covered it as a freak accident . But then we watched – on live television – the second airplane hitting the South Tower . Stunned silence .
At that point , the reality sunk in that this was not an accident . These were targeted attacks .
Folks in our office began to head for home . Delta is headquartered in Atlanta , and the airport is one of the busiest in the world . Some of my coworkers had family in the industry . We learned that air travel throughout the country was shut down . Planes that were already in flight were diverted . The skies in Atlanta , usually abuzz with near constant overhead air traffic , were deathly silent .
News started to trickle in about the third attack on the Pentagon , and then later , about the fourth plane that never found its target , but instead crashed in rural Pennsylvania .
At that moment , there was a shared sense of panic . We were under attack . No one knew the extent of it , or what more might happen , or where .
The rest of that day is a blur . I went home and parked in front of the television in our basement . I reached out to friends in NYC but , of course , the telephone networks into New York were overloaded . There was no such thing as texting or instant messaging . I hugged my kids and my wife . We waited .
Phone calls were made from home . The courts were closed . Depositions were cancelled . Deadlines were forgiven . The judicial system shut down and waited .
We all have seen the footage of President Bush that morning reading to the class of children at Emma Booker Elementary here in Sarasota . I think the look on his face when he hears the news really represented the way we all felt in that moment : “ this can ’ t be happening … what do we do now ?”
What did we do ? We came together as Americans for the first time in my life .
My parents lived through WWII as children . I heard stories of the sacrifices , the rubber drives , the sugar rations , the war bonds , their older siblings and friends who served . That era of common purpose carried over for years following WWII and into the Korean conflict and the Space Race .
But in my lifetime – as a child of the street protests and of Watergate – I had never seen it for myself . It waned and devolved into political bickering . The Iran-Contra affair . The Clinton impeachment proceedings . Congressional investigations and hearings . The advent of talk radio and 24-hour television news-media channels that sell division .
I had never seen it — until that day and the days that followed .
For a brief moment , we were united again as one country . We lifted up our friends and neighbors in NYC , DC , and elsewhere . We were gracious , and kind , and patient , and we had each other ’ s backs . All of us .
The attacks had the opposite effect of what the terrorists intended . The attacks made us stronger . Sure , we had to embrace heightened airport security and other inconveniences . Our various responses to the attacks have been subjected to years of scrutiny and , it now appears , will be subjected to even more scrutiny for years to come . And yes , xenophobia reared its ugly head . Again .
But for a little while , anyway , we mostly put aside selfish partisanship for our common good .
That ’ s what I remember from twenty years ago .
THE DOCKET · OCTOBER 2021 15