Remembering the day of terror
25 years after terrorist attack, Alpena voices reflect on tragic day
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ALPENA - Twenty-five years after four hijacked airliners slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Alpena-area residents and firefighters say one duty has grown more urgent with time, teaching younger generations what Sept. 11, 2001, actually was and what it meant for the future at the time.
City of Alpena Fire Chief Andy Marceau was already on the job that morning. He has now spent 28 years with the department. His own children were not yet born when the towers fell, and he said they know little about the attacks unless someone sits them down and tells the story.
That gap, local first responders said this week, is no longer an afterthought. It is the work of remembrance.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day, among them 343 members of the Fire Department of New York who climbed into the burning towers as others fled. A quarter-century later, Alpena's firehouses still measure themselves against that example -- and against the risk that the day becomes only a date on a calendar.
Marceau was at home having his carpets cleaned when the first reports reached him. He turned on the television, then drove to the station and sat in the kitchen with fellow firefighters.
"At first it appeared to be an accident and then it turned into, wow, this is real, what's next," Marceau said. "Nobody really knew at the start of it if this was an accident or a planned attack."
The second tower was struck. The Pentagon was hit. United Airlines Flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania after passengers fought the hijackers. In Alpena, as in living rooms and firehouse kitchens across the country, the men and women who run toward danger sat still and watched.
"In shock," Marceau said of those hours at the station.
Christina Klimczak, now a certified medical assistant in Alpena, was sitting in her kitchen eating breakfast and waiting to leave for college when the news broke.
"I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I couldn't believe something like this was happening in the United States," she said. "My heart immediately went out to all those people."
Then a second plane appeared on the screen.
"I remember hearing the news reporter say, 'There's a second plane. Oh my God, it's going to hit the other tower,'" Klimczak said. "Moments later, it did. Moments later I wouldn't be able to believe my eyes. One tower collapsed. Devastation. Then the second tower collapsed."
She gasped and began to cry, she said, not knowing what would come next.
"I wondered if this was the beginning of another war. I was scared, shocked and heartbroken as the events unfolded before my eyes."
Her husband, Matt Klimczak, a paid-on-call firefighter and medical first responder with the Alpena Township Fire Department, was walking into English class that morning. Only the first tower had been struck when his teacher turned on the television. For the rest of the school day, every classroom kept the news on as students and teachers watched the attacks unfold in real time.
"Like many Americans, I was in disbelief that something like this could happen," he said. "As more information came in, I felt shock, sadness and anger. I remember hoping that our military would find those responsible and take them out."
He was not in emergency services then. He joined the township fire department in 2009. Looking back as a firefighter, he said, he has an even greater appreciation for the courage of the first responders who answered the call that day.
Across town that morning, Sarah Benjamin of Alpena was in a criminal justice class at Alpena Community College when news of the attack broke.
"I was at ACC on September 11, 2001, in a criminal justice class taught by Mr. Roy," Benjamin said. "I remember him going to the back of the room into his office. When he came back, he told all of us what had happened."
"We gathered around the little TV in the room, trying to understand what we were seeing," she said. "Everything felt surreal and frightening. We watched together for a while, and then we were told to go home. I'll never forget that moment - the classroom, Mr. Roy coming back from his office, all of us gathered around that little TV, and then being sent home. It was one of those moments when you knew the world had suddenly changed."
Jeremy Jones of Alpena was not in a classroom. He and his wife were in Traverse City because their son was in the neonatal intensive care unit there.
"Me and my wife were in TC because our son was in the NICU there," Jones said. "We were just leaving the hospitality house to go to the hospital when I saw the TV showing the first tower on fire. We stopped to watch then saw the other tower get hit by another plane. I knew the world had changed then. I wondered what kind of world our son was going to be born in."
That question still hangs over the anniversary. Jones's son was a newborn when the towers fell. Marceau's children were not born yet. A generation has now grown up in the country Jones worried about that morning, often with only fragments of the story.
Alpena Township Firefighter Ryan Mendyka was working in Rochester Hills and listening to the radio when the first reports aired. Early accounts suggested a small plane had accidentally struck one of the World Trade Center towers. He remembers the host immediately rejecting that idea.
"He knew right away it wasn't a small aircraft, and he warned us then and there that we were under attack," Mendyka said.
The gravity of it sent his thoughts to his brother, who was serving in the military.
"I knew his unit would be scrambling frantically to make sense of the chaos," Mendyka said. "In those early hours, terrifying uncertainty hung over everything. We had no idea which major cities might be targeted next."
The shock that an assault of that magnitude could happen on American soil was overwhelming, he said. The day brought a wave of anger, fear and disgust. All they could do, he said, was watch the television as the reports kept coming.
Alpena Township Fire Chief Tim Baker was living in Holt and had been up early working on homework for a fire science degree. He was a shift leader with the Delhi Township Fire Department and a military veteran.
"Like so many others across the country, I learned of the attacks as the information began to unfold that morning," Baker said. "The initial reports brought a sense of disbelief and shock -- an event so unprecedented that it was difficult to immediately comprehend its scale and impact."
His first instinct, he said, was to help. He went into the station as agencies across the metro Lansing area evaluated whether local crews would be sent to New York.
"Ultimately, we received word that an immediate response from our region was not needed, but the commitment and readiness to assist was unwavering," Baker said.
The world changed that day, he said. Security, preparedness and emergency response evolved at every level of public safety and national defense. Still, he said, he remains convinced the United States is the greatest country in the world.
The attacks also changed who walked through firehouse doors.
"I was in the field, and it brought a lot of people into this field that wanted to help," Marceau said.
Training changed with them. Federal money and new standards poured into departments large and small after the attacks.
"The training that came as a result of 9/11 and the money spent on it was phenomenal," Marceau said.
Baker has tried to keep the human cost in view. He has taken part in numerous memorial stair climbs, each one meant as a tribute to the 343 firefighters who climbed the towers in service to others. He has also traveled to New York City to run the Tunnel to Towers 5K, an experience he called one of his most meaningful memories tied to the legacy of that day.
"Honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice has remained important to me," Baker said.
Mendyka said the country must not let that honor fade into a slogan.
"What we must never forget are the brave men and women who ran into those burning buildings, and those who stepped up across every targeted site," he said. "Their sacrifice will forever live on in our memories, honored daily in firehouses, EMS stations and police departments across the United States. Every single one of them was a hero, and we will never forget."
Marceau said he believes the country is safer now and added he flies commercially a couple of times a year.
"Measures like keeping the cockpit doors strictly locked and reinforced is a good thing," he said. "I don't think there are any Americans that would sit by and let someone take over a plane in this day and age."
Alpena residents, he added, live with a reminder overhead. The Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, one of four such Air National Guard sites in the country, trains military aviation and emergency response units on the edge of town. Those aircraft, Marceau said, are training to defend the country.
Baker cautioned that remembrance should not become a life lived in fear.
"The events of 9/11 will always shape our awareness, but they must never dictate our ability to live our lives," he said. "We honor those we lost not by living in fear, but by moving forward - strong, resilient and unwavering in our commitment to protect our communities and uphold the freedoms that define our nation."
That, he and the others said, is the lesson worth handing to students who were not alive in 2001: The day was defined not only by the hijackers who took the planes, but by the firefighters who went up the stairs, the passengers who fought back over Pennsylvania, and the neighbors who decided afterward that service still mattered.
"September 11, 2001, will always remain a defining moment in our nation's history, and in the history of the fire service," Baker said. "The lessons, the losses and the heroism continue to shape how we train, prepare and serve -- ensuring that we honor the past while moving forward with purpose and resilience."