Growing Up 9/11: What We Were Shielded From

What do you actually remember about September 11th, 2001? If you were a 10-year-old sitting in a fifth-grade classroom, the answer is likely a haze of fragmented details, strange rumors, and missing pieces. In this special 25th-anniversary retrospective, host James Brierton reunites with his former Long Island classmates—Alejandra Spoonley, Nanci Helmle and Dominic Siggilino — along with their fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Jeff Netter, and family members who were in lower Manhattan that morning. Together, they sit down to untangle false memories, compare notes, and solve a 25-year-old mystery: what was really happening behind the scenes while the adults in their lives kept on a calm poker face? By gathering these different perspectives—from a teacher in the corner listening to a boombox through headphones, to a child watching classmates vanish one by one as the classroom phone rang off the hook, to an uncle escaping the collapse of 7 World Trade Center—this episode pieced together a story none of them could fully see on their own. It’s an intimate exploration of childhood innocence, protective silence, community drama, and how we pass these memories down to a new generation.