On Losing a Friend on 9/11--And the Losses Since

Twelve years years ago, at this hour on this day (and very sunny, like today), I was  boarding a train to New York, heading for my office in the East Village, in New York, at Editor & Publisher magazine.  A few minutes later, as my train sped south, an airliner flew almost directly overhead over the Hudson on its way to find and smash into one of the World Trade Center towers.  Before the train reached Grand Central, a conductor announced that first one plane, then another, had hit the WTC.  I looked down the river and saw the smoke, recalling that one of my friends, who I had talked to the night before, worked on a very high floor in one of the towers.

I watched the next hour unfold at Grand Central, tried to catch the last train out of town, barely missed, then evacuated the terminal in full after they announced a plane might be heading out way.  Then I wandered downtown...

The rest of my story from that day (and the state of terror and war since) which I wrote for The Nation two years ago.