H1 - Heidi Harris guest-hosts, reflecting on 9/11's anniversary, current education controversies, and political divisions.

What this episode covers

Transcript Heidi Harris: Always a privilege sitting in, hanging out with you all, giving Charlie a well-deserved day off. Labor Day, hope you're enjoying it. And, of course, we've been focusing a lot, many of us, over the last week or so, just in our private lives and maybe things we've been looking at online, or conversations we're having with people, about the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Seems hard to imagine. Where were you on 9/11 when you first heard the news? Were you working? I mean, by as you know, it was 8:45 in the morning in New York City. But where were you? What were you doing? What was your first thought? I remember thinking, because I was on the West Coast, 6:00 in the morning. A friend of mine called me and said—well, 6:45, I guess. A friend of mine called me and said, "Turn on CNN." We didn't have Fox back then where I lived. Turn the radio on—or TV on. And the first thing I thought was, "I'm surprised it didn't happen before now." Because I'd been paying attention to what was going on, and the threats made to America. And my pastor had been talking a lot about that at the time, too. And I just remember thinking, "Wow, surprised it hadn't happened before now." Horrific, obviously, to see this kind of thing going on. And I had never been to the World Trade Center, and I didn't have any idea how many people were in there. My brother, who had been there, lived on the East Coast—he was in D.C. at the time. And I called him, and I said, "How many people would be—could possibly be in the World Trade Center?" He said upwards of 50,000 people could have been there at the time. Now, that's what my brother said, okay? And we know it was 8:45 in the morning, so a lot of people hadn't gotten to work yet, maybe. And there were all kinds of stories of people who were off that day, or were in there just that one day, who passed away. I mean, there are all kinds of stories. But where were you 25 years ago? Let me know. Text line's always open. Common Sense Retirement Planning text line: 800-905-0989. 800-905-0989, and the WORD talk line is the same. I just learned something moments ago. I remember on 9/11 just watching it like a lot of people, just speechless. And watching what was happening, and watching the building collapse, and watching all the stuff floating down, all the papers floating down to the street. And I remember hearing something. Do you guys remember this? The beep, beep, beep... Do you remember that sound? It was like a beacon, right? The beep, beep, beep. And I knew it was related to firefighters. I did not know this until literally today. I was reading a story that Janice Dean—remember Janice Dean from the Fox News Channel who recently retired? She wrote a story because her husband was a survivor of 9/11, only because he was going to take the test for lieutenant and was not working that day and missed it, and this and that. And I posted it on the Heidi Harris Show Facebook page, you can check it out later. But she wrote a story about it, and she mentioned what these things are called. She talked about how her husband, when they went to the 9/11 Memorial... She said her husband—I guess you have the sights and the sounds there of Ground Zero at the memorial... She said, "Through the speakers, we heard what Sean explained: our firefighter P-A-S-S (Personal Alert Safety Systems) alarms." Now, by the way, if you're a firefighter, you know this; I did not know this. But here's what I really didn't know: I knew it was something to do with firefighters, but they were meant to activate when a firefighter is immobile for more than 30 seconds. So that was really the most haunting sound that I remember from 9/11. And it's even more haunting to me now, realizing that that's what it meant. That a firefighter was immobile for 30 seconds. And that's what you heard: beep, beep, beep, and stuff floating down. And everything was gray. Everybody was one color that day because they were all covered wi ...

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