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EASTERN OREGON REMEMBERS 9/11
East Oregonian
Saturday, September 11, 2021
9/11: A moment of terror and unity
Two decades later,
locals reflect on
the terrorists attacks
Tribute honors
retired lieutenant
colonel killed in
9/11 terror attack
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
The Main Street
Cowboys on Satur-
day, Sept. 11, will hold
a tribute to Michael
Selves, a 1965 Pendle-
ton High School grad-
uate and retired Army
lieutenant colonel who
was killed when a plane
struck the Pentagon on
9/11. The tribute will
occur at 9:45 a.m. on the
side street between the
Pendleton Round-Up &
Happy Canyon Hall of
Fame Museum and the
new Round-Up office.
Organizers encourage
classmates of Selves,
among other commu-
nity members, to attend
the tribute.
PENDLETON — As
Amy Madden called her
colleagues in New York on
Sept. 11, 2001, she wondered
why no one was answering.
Madden was working at
a securities brokerage firm
in Portland, her first job out
of college. It was around
6 a.m. She was working east
coast hours. A coworker
brought in a radio. Together,
they listened as the world
changed.
“I just remember being
scared,” said Madden, the
manager of Roosters Coun-
try Kitchen in Pendleton.
At around that same time
more than 200 miles away,
Jack Remillard was prepar-
ing for the first day of the
Pendleton Round-Up. His
daughter, who was in the
army and was stationed in
Alabama, called and told
Remillard to turn on the T.V.
As the f irst images
appeared, the since-re-
tired assistant chief and fire
marshall remembers clearly
what went through his mind:
“Firefighters are going to die
today.”
He was right. More than
340 New York firefighters
died that day. Nearly 3,000
people died in total.
It was a tragedy that
forever shaped America’s
place in the world. Twenty
years later, that day sticks in
the minds of residents living
nearly 2,700 miles away from
the World Trade Center.
Grasping what
happened
When Remillard got to the
station later that day, the tele-
vision was on. Every channel
displayed the carnage, and
the firefighters, like millions
of people nationwide, were
glued to the TV. As he headed
to the Round-Up, he saw the
local National Guard’s tank
heading toward the Eastern
Oregon Regional Airport
at Pendleton. Until then, it
hadn’t sunk in that the nation
was at war.
That evening, Madden
The Associated Press, File
Firefighters raise a flag late in the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, in the wreckage of the World Trade Center towers in New York.
recalled going to church,
“because I didn’t know
what else to do,” she said.
The service was packed
with hundreds of people.
The pastor prayed for the
men and women that would
be called to war.
In the days to come,
Madden reeled with anxi-
ety. She told a doctor that
she was experiencing panic
and shortness of breath. The
doctor told her many others
were experiencing the same
thing. She felt that her shel-
tered life had been shattered.
She said she had to grow up
quickly.
“You didn’t know when
the next attack would come,”
she said.
Back in Pendleton, Remi-
llard felt similar to Madden.
He was on edge. That
Round-Up, he said, was
somber and subdued.
“It was clear people were
worried,” he said.
The tragedy hits home
Michael Selves was a 1965
graduate of Pendleton High
School and a retired Army
lieutenant colonel who died
in the plane strike at the
Pentagon. Selves also was the
son of Remillard’s neighbor.
Remillard’s job, as he
describes it, was to protect
firefighters so that they could
protect the public. After hear-
ing the reports of firefight-
ers killed that day, he felt a
greater responsibility to his
crew.
“It made me realize I
needed to do a lot better
at my job than I thought I
was,” he said. “When 9/11
hit, I wanted to make sure
the guys were OK, whatever
happens.”
Shortly after, public
safety officials gathered in
the Vert Auditorium, Pend-
leton. Together, they tried
to make sense of the event.
They spoke of their feelings
and sang songs. Later, they
paraded through the town.
Remillard said he felt proud
to be an American after 9/11.
“To me, that showed a
pride in who we are and why
we do what we do,” he said.
A sense of unity had
descended on the entire
nation, he and Madden said.
They felt it, even though they
were nearly 2,700 miles from
where the Twin Towers fell.
Surreal September
9/11 etches itself into
memories of Baker
County residents
By JAYSON JACOBY,
LISA BRITTON and
SAMANTHA O’CONNER
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY — Whitney
Black remembered the horror and
the fear and the disbelief.
But even more vividly from
the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, she
remembered the frustration.
How helpless she felt, with most
of a continent between her and New
York City, where two great build-
ings had collapsed, where so many
people had died
and so many more
were suffering.
“As soon as I
found out, I felt
like I should be
there, helpi ng
people, protect-
Black
ing,” Whitney said
on Thursday, Sept. 9, two days shy
of the 20th anniversary of the terror-
ist attacks.
“It drove me nuts.”
Whitney, now 49, was at home in
Baker City that sunny, late summer
morning with her husband, Shan-
non, and their two young children.
They didn’t have a television.
She first learned of the tragedy
when her brother-in-law, Chris
Black, telephoned.
“Check the news,” he told her.
Whitney recalled watching on
TV as the second airliner struck
one of the Twin Towers. She said she
thinks she was at her parents’ home
in Baker City.
She’s not sure about that.
But she absolutely recalled her
reaction to seeing that improbable
collision, the fire and the smoke,
the tiny dots on the screen that were
people, leaping to their deaths.
“Surreal,” she said.
“We were all so afraid, just trying
to sort it out,” Whitney said. “We
got to see it in real time. Your heart
aches.”
Later in the day, when the scale
of the catastrophe became clear,
she said she felt compelled to act.
She started by calling Baker City
churches. She phoned other people
she knew.
Her goal was to gather supplies
that people in New York City might
need, or that might offer them some
meager comfort in a terrible time.
“It was a channel for my frustra-
tion,” Whitney said. “I think a lot of
people responded that way.”
Within a day, Whitney was
watching about 30 volunteers sort
through donated items at the Baker
City Church of the Nazarene, stack-
ing them into piles on tables.
There were gloves and clothes
and toys to brighten a frightened
child’s day.
She said she talked with a man in
New York City who was coordinat-
ing the donations that arrived from
across America. She recalled how
gratified she was at the sheer volume
of donations Baker City and Baker
County residents collected and how
shocked her New York City contact
was when she told him what the
population here is.
She had to repeat the figure
twice.
“It was amazing,” Whitney said.
“We came together. We were all just
devastated. How can you have any
petty squabbles with anyone when
you see something like that? So
many people wanted to volunteer.”
Two decades later, it’s that
community spirit that helps Whit-
ney balance the sadness of her
memories of what she, along with
so many millions of Americans, saw
that day.
Bill Mitchell, retired teacher
Sept. 11, 2001, was a Tuesday,
and every Tuesday Bill Mitchell
played basketball at 6 a.m. before
heading to his classroom at Baker
Middle School, where he taught
social studies.
As the time for school
Robert Giroux /Getty Images
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a coordinated terrorist attack saw two hijacked commercial airplanes crash
into New York City’s Twin Towers, a third plane into the Pentagon, and a fourth into a field in western Pennsyl-
vania. In the Manhattan crashes alone, 2,753 people were killed, and an additional 244 people died in the other
two locations. The attacks were the most devastating terrorist activity to ever take place on American soil.
approached, he
headed to get his
mail at the school
office.
“It’s just as clear
as if it was yester-
day,” he said.
Mitchell
Dana Blanken-
ship, who taught science at BMS,
met Mitchell at the stairs.
“He said ‘It’s Pearl Harbor all
over again. Turn your TV on.’ ”
Mitchell did, and watched the
chaos in New York City, a place he’d
visited several years before with a
group of middle school students.
And on that day, a Tuesday
ingrained in so many American
memories, he would stand before
multiple classes.
“I remember thinking the lesson
plan for today has changed drasti-
cally. It became a question-and-an-
swer day,” he said.
Mitchell remembers two reac-
tions from his students. First, they
were picking up — and absorbing
— the anxiety of the adults around
them.
Second, they wanted answers.
“Their need to want definitive
answers of what’s happening and
what were the consequences. And
there were no answers,” Mitchell said.
He did have one truth to offer.
“I told them things are going to
change,” he said.
He has not yet returned to New
York City.