HARLINGEN — Good Morning, America.
People are finishing breakfast and drinking coffee as they watch the popular morning news show with anchorwoman Diane Sawyer.
Suddenly everything stops. She faces the camera and tells viewers, “There’s been an explosion.”
Phones ring, life as we know it stops, hearts race and primal survival modes kick in as the world watches the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapse.
Twenty years ago Saturday morning the world changed forever when hijackers flew two passenger planes into the World Trade Center. Another ripped into the Pentagon. The passengers of United 93 rushed the hijackers of their aircraft. The jet slammed into a field in Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board, missing its target of either the White House or the U.S. Capitol.
Saturday, the tragedy and sacrifices of that day are being recognized by memorial events across the country, and Harlingen is no different.
The Twentieth Anniversary of 9/11 ceremony will be held Saturday at Valley International Airport where Jorge Bustilloz will share his memories of being in the Pentagon when the plane hit. Others will also be on hand to share their thoughts.
“I was working as a police officer on that day,” said Sgt. Sal Carmona of the Harlingen Police Department.
Carmona is also the organizer of the event.
“I had just gotten off work from the night and I saw the events as they unfolded on the news, and I was shocked,” he said.
Mayor Chris Boswell was a Harlingen City Commissioner at the time. He’d just left City Hall and heard the news on the radio. He continued to follow the event back at his office, and like many people he started making calls — first to his wife.
“You call your family, your friends, and you start watching it unfold in disbelief and horror,” he said. “It was just an incredibly emotional day.”
Everyone seems to remember what they were doing 20 years ago today. Dr. Christopher Romero, internal medicine specialist at Valley Baptist Medical Center – Harlingen, was studying in the student center at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi.
“All of a sudden they wheeled a TV into the room and put on the news, and the first plane had gone into the first tower,” said Romero, who is also the medical director at PanAmerican Clinical Research in Brownsville.
“Everybody just stopped what they were doing,” he said. “We were just riveted to the screen watching the whole thing unfold.”
He told his future wife — they were in the dating phase at the time — “We’re at war. I don’t know with who but we’re definitely at war.”
And he watched with awe how young Americans in customary fashion rallied to the cause and joined the military.
That’s what Carmona wanted to do, but just one problem — he’d just retired from the U.S. Marine Corps and was in his second year as a police officer.
“I figured the best way to continue to help out was to work as a police officer to make sure our town was safe,” he said.
As he has set about organizing Saturday’s event, he’s noted that many have said they can’t believe it’s been 20 years.
“In my mind that means everyone has put in the backs of their minds, they haven’t thought about it regularly,” he said. “That’s why my theme here for this ceremony is we will never forget.”
