H4 - Listeners call in to share personal 9/11 memories; host Charlie James discusses local politics and upcoming debates.

What this episode covers

Transcript Charlie James: All right, welcome back to the program. Let's go to the phones. We're going to talk to Ray from Clinton. Ray, welcome. How are you, sir? Ray: Oh, thank you very much for letting me get in there. My experience with the Twin Trade Centers had to do with my first job out of college. I was recruited by Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation as a product engineer, and assigned to the Winchester Division, which also included the Ramset division, which is powder-actuated fastening. And I got involved with it because they said, "You got to go down to the Twin Trade Centers occasionally because that's a big contract." Olin Aluminum made the window tracks for all the windows in those buildings. Charlie James: Right. Ray: And I had to go down and see if there was any problems, because it was like millions of dollar contract. Charlie James: Sure. Ray: So I went down there a few times and I got to see how they were building that building. They were taking wide-flange beams and welding them together to form a tube, and filling that tube with concrete—a whole new way. So I got to talk at the meetings we had, I got to talk to the architects. I said, "What the heck is this building going to take if anything hits it?" Because I was relating to what was happening when the B-25 ran into the Empire State Building during World War II, and it just got knocked off like it was a flea or whatever. But I said, "What happens if a 747 fully loaded..." And they assured me that if a 747, 150,000 pounds traveling 500 miles an hour, would not tip those buildings over. But I was a flyer, too. I spent six years Navy Reserve Air. And I forgot all about the fuel! Charlie James: Yeah. Ray: And the fuel is what did it in, because... Charlie James: The fuel's what did it. You're exactly right. And the heat from that was just absolutely unbelievable. Let's go to George in Greenville. George, welcome. George: Hey, Charlie. Thanks for having me. Hopefully I don't get emotional here, but today is definitely a solemn day for me. I was at work in Alexandria, Virginia on September 11th, and we heard the plane hit the Pentagon. It was an American Airlines jet that unfortunately had kids on it who were heading to a... you know, wherever it was going, anyway. And we all had to get locked down because, you know, at that time the metro lines were all shut down in D.C., and everybody else had to walk out, and it was pretty much a scene from Armageddon. And by the time they released us, I was leaving out, and I lived probably about 45 minutes away. I drove, and everybody was walking around, and I stopped and picked up a Navy captain. His car was parked in Del City, so that was probably about a 45-minute drive, but everybody was walking to their vehicles—that's all they had to do. And we drove by the Pentagon and saw it in flames, and it was very dramatic. Just to see that, and knowing that that plane had crashed into the Pentagon... And for all those naysayers out there who say it was an inside job, it really wasn't, you know? It was very emotional and troublesome, and the fact that the Islamic regime, terrorists, and everything else, it just really came to heart. This is certainly a day to remember. But I just wanted to call in to give my story because seeing that in person was very dramatic. Charlie James: When you first heard about that, I mean, were you like me? When the first plane hit, you're like, "Oh my gosh, what a horrible accident," and then when the second plane hit, you were like, "All right, well, this is an attack"? George: Yeah, so I was actually working on veterans' issues, and my colleagues and I were supposed to go down to the Capitol to testify, to be honest with you. And so we saw that the planes had hit the Twin Towers, and obviously we knew something was up. But what we all didn't realize was that a few minutes later, we heard the crash at the Pentagon. In fact, one of my colleagues was at the Pentagon interviewing the ...

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