As Americans look back on 9/11 over the coming week, an official with the Transportation Security Administration in Maryland recalls being in New York City near the base of the North Tower at the World Trade Center complex when the first plane hit.
“The plane went right over my head and went into the north building,” Tom Battillo said.
Battillo, who worked on Wall Street at the time, was supposed to be in a meeting at the top of that building.
It just so happened that his son called him, so he decided to stay outside and talk to him on the phone.
His colleagues who went into the building did not survive.
“Good friends of ours didn’t make it because they went upstairs,” Battillo said. “We went to a lot of memorial services without closure. It takes a lot of time to get over what you would call survivor’s guilt.”
He added that “days, weeks and months after that we were just trying to get ourselves back together.”
Wednesday marks 23 years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
“Around this time of year, things are a little tough,” Battillo said. “It just brings back everything that happened.”
“When people were jumping — these are sounds that never leave your mind. You can still hear it,” he said. “You can still smell jet fuel burning.”
Battillo works at BWI Marshall Airport as the assistant federal security director for mission support with the Transportation Security Administration, the agency that was created as a response to 9/11.
The job itself provides some closure and holds deep meaning for Battillo, especially around the time of the anniversary.
“There’s been a lot of healing just being able to work with people who every day come and support the mission,” he said.
Battillo has a tattoo on his arm showing the World Trade Center towers in front of an American flag, along with the words, “Never Forget.”
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