My personal memory of September 11, 2001
Prologue
September 11, 2001, was a monumental historical event that will never be forgotten—not just by me, but by countless people in America and around the world.
This year, 2026, marks 25 years since that fateful day. I was in my thirties back then; today, I am 60 and have reached the age of retirement. Even now, people often say to me, “That must have been so hard,” or “I’d love to ask you what happened because I know what a massive event it was, but I imagine it’s too painful to talk about.” It is true that the impact of the plane hitting the tower, the atmosphere inside the building afterward, and the smells are things I will never forget.
However, as the years go by and I grow older, I know it is inevitable that my memory will begin to fade. Before those recollections slip away, I decided to put them into writing. My hope is to preserve a record of historical fact, while also sharing these raw memories with as many people as possible so they know what it was really like.
Joining a Non-Life Insurance Company and Struggles in Sales
I graduated from a university in Kobe in 1990. Having majored in foreign languages, I (somewhat naively) figured that a non-life insurance company would have overseas offices, and that there probably wouldn’t be too much competition among employees hoping for international assignments. I chose this particular company because an upperclassman from my university worked there—giving me an easy route for alumni visits—and because they had a representative office in Madrid, Spain, where I had spent several months as a student. I figured, maybe I can go there someday.
Most of my classmates were taking jobs at electronics manufacturers headquartered in the Kansai region or at travel agencies; very few were considering financial institutions. To be honest, I wasn’t seriously thinking about a career in finance either. Between my junior and senior years of university, I took a year off to study (or rather, play!) in Spain. I returned to Japan in April of what was supposed to be my senior year, frantically requested job-hunting materials, and ultimately, this company was the only one where I even made it to the interview stage. I didn’t do any real job hunting at all. I was simply a massive beneficiary of the intense seller’s market at the height of Japan’s economic bubble. When I look at university students today—starting internships in their junior year and wearing black suits every single day in their senior year for endless company visits—I can’t help but feel sorry for them, even if it’s someone else’s problem.
As you can see, I joined the company effortlessly, without any struggle. But my first two years after joining were absolute hell. While the rest of the world was partying away on endless corporate expense accounts, I was assigned to a sales branch in Tokyo. My life consisted of commuting between a company bachelor dormitory in the backwoods of Saitama and my branch office. Every day, I worked until the last train while being constantly scolded by my boss. I had to work on weekends, had zero time for drinking parties, and my sales performance was mediocre. I was utterly exhausted from being constantly reprimanded, to the point where I even told my boss I wanted to quit.
Well, the truth is that my own attitude toward work was too complacent. As a result—in a company where employees usually aren’t transferred for their first three years—I was transferred after just two years to a claims payment department handling fire insurance back in my hometown of Kobe.
In this new department, overtime hours weren’t nearly as long as in my sales days, and my new boss was a wonderful person. I was amazed that even within the same company, the work environment could be so drastically different depending on the department. That said, there was a lot to learn. While my boss at the time was gentle and never raised his voice, the documents I submitted always came back with sticky notes attached, bearing more than ten instructional comments. I was constantly depressed by my own sloppiness and shallow understanding of the work.
The Great Hanshin Earthquake
On January 17, 1995, at 5:46 AM, just as my third year working in Kobe was coming to a end, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake struck, with its epicenter in northern Awaji Island. Fortunately, my home was intact, but the building housing our company office was severely damaged, declared off-limits, and rendered unusable. The cityscape of Kobe, where I was born and raised, changed completely overnight. I was left at a loss, wondering what would become of the future.
After a while, we relocated to a nearby building and resumed operations. However, under standard fire insurance policies, damage caused by earthquakes or fires resulting from earthquakes is explicitly excluded from coverage unless the policyholder has separately added an earthquake insurance endorsement. At the time, many people in Kobe believed an earthquake would never happen there and hadn’t opted for the extra coverage. When these uninsured clients submitted claims, we had no choice but to deny them.
Because my department was directly responsible for paying out fire insurance claims, my daily life—despite still being a young rookie—was an all-out effort. I was handling office relocation and setup, welcoming support staff from outside the prefecture, dealing with customer service, coordinating and negotiating with headquarters, explaining policy terms to clients, and attending meetings with external agencies. In dealing with customers, we received some very harsh words every time we had to turn down a claim payment. I remember it being taking a heavy emotional and mental toll on me.
My First Work Involving America
In January 1997, just as signs of recovery were beginning to appear on the streets of Kobe, I was transferred to a department at the Tokyo headquarters that handled overseas casualty claims and policy payment operations.
In this department, I was responsible for supporting product liability lawsuits related to products exported overseas by our policyholders—primarily Japanese manufacturing companies—as well as handling claims payments for overseas travel insurance. I found myself wrestling with unfamiliar English and complex legal jargon while exchanging emails with in-house attorneys at our New York subsidiary doing similar work, as well as external American lawyers. Over the three years leading up to March 2000, I experienced my first overseas business trips and felt that I was slowly getting closer to my dream.
April 2000: My Long-Awaited Overseas Assignment
In April 2000, entering my 11th year with the company, I finally received my long-awaited overseas assignment. Since I had majored in Spanish in college, I half-jokingly complained that my new post wasn’t in a Spanish-speaking country. A colleague scolded me, saying, “You’re being sent to New York, the center of the world! Don’t complain!”
My assignment was at the local subsidiary overseeing product liability litigation and travel insurance claims—the very same subsidiary my old claims department in Tokyo managed. Our office was located on the 90th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in downtown New York. We were a small team: just me, another expat handling marine cargo and hull insurance, a third expat stationed at our branch office in Los Angeles, six local staff members in New York, and two in LA.
Though New York was the company’s headquarters, our president was actually a general manager stationed back at the Tokyo HQ. This meant I was the only expat on the ground actually managing the day-to-day operations of the company. Because I knew nothing about corporate accounting or company management, every single day was a series of unknowns. I had to learn by reading books and getting guidance from the accounting firm to which we outsourced our financial statements.
On top of that, I had thought my English was reasonably good, but it didn’t hold up at all when working with the two American in-house lawyers in our office. I felt even more discouraged when one of them said something along the lines of, “Well, your English is still better than most Japanese people!” I keenly felt just how tough it was to work abroad. Even so, the beauty of the sunset seen through those 90th-floor windows is something I will never forget.
In my private life, I settled into an roughly 80-year-old detached house in Glen Rock, a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey. The windows didn’t close properly and the house showed its age, but it had a barbecue grill set up in the spacious, grassy backyard. In the summer, we enjoyed hosting barbecues outside, fully immersing ourselves in the rich American suburban lifestyle. I also encountered the smell of a skunk for the very first time—realizing, while pinching my nose, that there are just some things in life you can’t understand until you experience them yourself.
That autumn, my eldest daughter was born, and I was living a very fulfilling life.
September 11, 2001
The morning of that day was beautifully clear.
We had a meeting scheduled with a major client, and there was a mountain of preparation work to get done. Still, my commute was the same as always: from Glen Rock Station, I took the NJ Transit train to Hoboken, where I transferred to the PATH train heading to the World Trade Center.
The WTC PATH station was located deep underground. As usual, I rode the long escalator up to the ground floor, swiped my keycard to enter the secure area, and took the rattling express elevator up to the 78th-floor Sky Lobby—my ears popping from the rapid change in air pressure. From there, I transferred to another elevator to reach our office on the 90th floor. It was a commute that was long both horizontally and vertically.
If I remember correctly, I usually arrived at the office around 8:30 AM.
8:46 AM
In addition to my subsidiary, the New York office housed sales and investment teams, making us an office of about 17 or 18 people in total. I was almost always the first one to arrive.
That day, just like any other, I transferred elevators, sat down at my desk facing the Hudson River at the usual time, booted up my computer, and was just about to eat the rice ball (onigiri) I had brought for breakfast.
Suddenly, there was an indescribable, tremendously loud deafening explosion and impact. Ceiling tiles rained down everywhere, and my computer monitor (one of those heavy, old CRT models) crashed noisily off my desk. More than anything, the entire building swayed violently like a pendulum. I genuinely thought the tower was going to snap in half and plunge right into the Hudson River.
Our office was on the southwest corner of the 90th floor of the North Tower. Because the plane (American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767) flew over Manhattan and hit the building from the north, I couldn’t see the incoming aircraft and had absolutely no idea what had just happened. After the shaking subsided, however, I looked out the window and saw countless pieces of paper swirling in the air outside. Since paper doesn’t normally swirl at the height of the 90th floor, I could easily guess that an explosion or something similar had blown out the windows.
“What on earth happened?” My first instinct was to grab the desk phone and call my home in New Jersey. The call went through, but my wife, who should have been home, didn’t answer. My daughter (who was just shy of her first birthday) had fallen ill the day before, and my wife was exhausted and fast asleep after staying up all night nursing her.
With no other choice, I put my cell phone and—for some reason—the rice ball wrapped in plastic wrap that I had been about to eat into my pocket, and stepped out into the hallway of our floor. I was the only one in our company’s office, and being alone made me feel deeply uneasy. Our floor was also home to a Japanese bank and roughly two local American firms.
When I stepped out onto the floor, I looked toward the Japanese bank, which faced directly north. The entrance doors and walls were already shattered, and flames appeared to be rising inside. I thought to myself, “Oh God, this is terrible. The people in the bank aren’t going to survive this…” (Much later, I read in an article that because their office faced north, they actually saw the plane coming right at them and evacuated immediately after the impact, so every single person survived… Thank goodness!)
Beyond that, the walls on our floor had collapsed in several places. The thick cables inside the elevator shafts—usually hidden from view—were entirely exposed, and sparks and embers were showering down from above. Along with an American man who was bleeding from his forehead and shouting, “What happened?!” I was welcomed into the office of another American bank where several people had gathered so we could collect information. Someone had called building security and was told, “Stay there.” It seemed building security hadn’t grasped the reality of what had happened either.
Everyone, myself included, was terrified; one woman was visibly shaking. Looking over, I noticed smoke drifting in from the entrance of my own office—it was already in a state where heading back inside was out of the question. Just as I was wondering what we should do, the emergency stairwell door burst open and a building security officer rushed in.
“What are you all doing in a place like this?! Get out, fast!” he barked in a desperate, urgent tone.
If that man hadn’t come for us, there is a very high probability we would have stayed right there and failed to escape before the building collapsed.
The Escape
Without hesitation, I started making my way down the stairs along with the several Americans who were there.
The emergency stairwell leading down from the 90th floor had no working lights; it was dimly lit only by the glow of the emergency exit signs. The steps were soaking wet, likely from the sprinkler system discharging, so we began walking down slowly. On the way down, someone lost their footing and slipped, which made me feel a bit anxious. However, when we reached the 78th-floor Sky Lobby, the normal lights were on, and the floor wasn’t wet at all. From there, we entered a different stairwell to continue our descent. The lights were on there too, it wasn’t wet, and it looked completely normal, as if nothing had happened.
There were three emergency stairwells running through the World Trade Center. They were quite narrow—just wide enough for two people to pass each other going up and down. We were descending through one of them, and from the 78th floor downward, it was fairly crowded with many people evacuating. At times, people were carrying the injured on stretchers. We also watched firefighters carrying heavy hoses, oxygen tanks, and other gear, their faces contorted in pain and dripping with sweat as they climbed up the stairs. Witnessing this, I focused entirely on making my way down to the lower floors.
Our movement was a slow, stop-and-go crawl, but no one seemed panicked. One person was even casually walking down while drinking a Coke. I overheard that same woman with the Coke mentioning that a plane had apparently hit the building. She said it wasn’t a small plane, but a large aircraft (I seem to recall her using the words “commercial jet”). I remember thinking, Huh, is that so? But as we were walking down, I don’t think a single person—myself included—ever imagined that the massive skyscraper was going to collapse.
As we reached lower floors, the number of people descending increased. We frequently had to stop to wait for injured people being slowly carried down on stretchers or to let firefighters pass as they climbed up. Fortunately, a building security officer who happened to be guiding people down near me went to check the other stairwells on that floor whenever our flow of traffic stalled. He directed us to emptier stairwells three different times, allowing us to descend smoothly.
When the security officer tried to guide us to another stairwell for a fourth time, for some inexplicable reason, I didn’t follow him and chose to stay in the stairwell I was already in. Suddenly, the stalled flow of people began moving smoothly as if by magic, and I was able to reach the bottom without any stress. Finally, around the second or third floor, we were routed out onto a terrace-like ledge around the building, descended into the basement, walked through Building 5 (5 WTC), and were guided out onto Church Street on the east side of the complex. I recall a man wearing an FBI jacket telling us in a very stern, commanding voice to hurry up and get out.
Looking back, I believe the reason we weren’t let out directly through the ground-floor exit of the North Tower was because it was extremely dangerous, with debris and people falling from above. In fact, I ended up seeing things I wish I had never seen.
The Collapse
The feeling of relief upon finally getting out of the building was short-lived. Just as I crossed Church Street directly opposite the WTC, I heard a massive, deafening roar—GOOOOOO! I looked up, and right before my eyes, the tower was collapsing from the top down. The South Tower collapsed at 9:58 AM, which means that was the exact moment I had managed to step outside.
I could see debris falling from above like a cloud of smoke, moving in what felt like slow motion.
“If that debris hits me, I am absolutely dead.”
My intuition screamed at me, and I started sprinting north at full speed to get as far away from the building as possible. My speed at that moment was probably faster than Carl Lewis, who was dominating the track and field world at the time…!
Strangely, even as I was running for my life, my mind remained completely calm. I reasoned that if I turned right (east) at the corner of a building up ahead, that structure would act as a shield and protect me from the falling debris. So, I rounded the corner. I don’t remember exactly which street it was, but it was likely Barclay Street. I specifically avoided turning down Vesey Street just past St. Paul’s Chapel because there were no tall buildings on the near side of it; I knew falling debris would rain straight down from the sky, so I calculated that I needed to turn a corner where I could hide in the shadow of a tall building.
It was a calm and rational decision. And thanks to that judgment, I wasn’t hit by any falling debris.
However, I was inevitably engulfed by the massive storm of pulverized concrete dust from the collapsed tower. That dust consisted of exceptionally fine particles. Even when I covered my mouth and nose with the fabric of my clothes, the dust invaded with every breath I took, clinging to the back of my nasal passages and throat until I could barely breathe. To make matters worse, while enveloped in that dust storm (which I personally refer to as a “desert sandstorm”), all light was blotted out. I was plunged into total, absolute darkness.
In that pitch-black void, I lost my equilibrium. Unable to stand, I squatted down on the spot. Combined with my suffocation and overwhelming anxiety, a terrifying thought crossed my mind: “I might actually die right here.”Throughout the entire ordeal of that incident, it was the only moment I genuinely felt the presence of death.
However, that total darkness probably didn’t last very long in actual time. Gradually, it began to grow brighter, the dust thinned out, and I could finally see my surroundings again. I breathed a sigh of relief, realizing I was going to make it. But my mouth was coated in dust, completely devoid of saliva, leaving my throat feeling scratchy and deeply uncomfortable. I started walking, looking everywhere for water.
Media Interviews
As I walked toward City Hall Park for a while, an Asian man wearing glasses peered at me curiously and asked in Japanese, “Are you Japanese?” He introduced himself: “I’m with [Name] News Agency.” To my surprise, he was a Japanese journalist.
Feeling a sense of relief, I asked him, “What on earth happened?”
“It’s terrorism! It’s a terrorist attack,” he replied. “Passenger planes hijacked and flown into the buildings. Both WTC towers have been destroyed. Still, I’m so glad you’re safe! I know this is a chaotic and terrible time, but could you tell me just your name? If your name is printed in the newspaper, it will let everyone back home who is worried about you know that you survived. Would you mind sharing just your name?”
I thought to myself, He sure knows how to make a compelling pitch. However, because my mouth was so parched I didn’t even have saliva to swallow, I told him I desperately wanted some water. He immediately ran off and bought me an orange juice. I then gave the reporter a detailed account of which floor of the building I was on and how I had escaped.
“I see,” he remarked. “Running all the way down from the 90th floor must have been incredibly exhausting!”
“No, no,” I corrected him. “I didn’t run at all. None of us thought the building was going to collapse, so we just walked down slowly.”
After exchanging those words, we parted ways.
Some time later, I looked at a clipping from a local Kansai newspaper that my parents had sent me. It was an article syndicated by that very news agency, featuring a massive headline: “SPRINTED DOWN 90 FLOORS!” …Hey now, don’t write lies, I thought, utterly astounded.
Speaking of media interviews, there was another incident a few days later, around midnight. I suddenly received a phone call from a reporter at a major Tokyo-based newspaper saying he wanted to interview me over the phone right then and there. Aside from thinking it was incredibly rude to call at such a late hour, our company had already instructed us to direct all media inquiries to the Public Relations department. When I conveyed this to him, the reporter actually clicked his tongue in annoyance, cursed, “Damn it, I’m not gonna make my deadline!” and abruptly hung up on me. Ever since then, I’ve had a strong aversion to dealing with the media—not that I ever get interviewed for anything nowadays anyway!
Contacting My Family
After parting ways with the news agency reporter, I knew I had to call my family. I took my cell phone out of my pocket and tried calling repeatedly, but the cellular network was completely swamped and showed no sign of connecting. Left with no choice, I stood in line for a nearby payphone while continuing to retry my cell phone over and over.
Miraculously, my cell phone finally connected, and I was able to get in touch with my family. I tried to speak in a lighthearted, joking tone: “Well, I’m still alive!” But the voice on the other end of the line was choking back tears.
You might wonder how I could remain so nonchalant after going through such a horrific ordeal. A few months after the attack, a friend from my university days visited New York on business—he worked in the HR department of a Japanese brokerage firm that had been located in the WTC—and we had dinner together. During our meal, he pointed something out to me:
“Look,” he said, “I know people around you are constantly worrying about you and offering words of support. But don’t let that go to your head; you have it backwards. When the plane hit, while you were escaping, and even when you were covered in dust, you constantly had the physical realization that you were ‘alive.’ But for your family and friends, during those hours when your safety was unknown, they were living in absolute agony, terrified that you were dead. The stress they experienced during that time is immeasurable.”
His words struck a deep chord, and I completely agreed with him. Looking back, it made perfect sense. About a month before the terrorist attacks, my parents had come to visit me in New York. My father is from a rural town and has never had any connection to foreign countries. When my safety was unknown on 9/11, he apparently said something completely irrational: “The only reason he suffered through this is because I let him go to America.” Learning this made me realize just how overwhelming the stress of not knowing whether your child is alive or dead truly is—enough to make a parent blame themselves in such a way.
Evacuation
I had finally managed to contact my family, but now I had to figure out what to do next. How am I going to get home? Public transportation is completely shut down, and I can’t cross the Hudson River, I thought to myself. For the time being, I simply started walking north. Our company regularly worked with a law firm located on 42nd Street, and I figured if I went to their office, I might be able to get some reliable information.
As I walked, the crowd of people moving north along the avenue grew larger and larger. Among them, I was completely covered in white dust from head to toe. Occasionally, a stranger would approach me and ask, “Were you in the WTC?” When I answered yes, they would express genuine joy and relief that I had survived. At one point, I watched the moment of impact on a street-side television for the very first time and was shocked all over again. Later, wanting nothing more than to take a shower, I tried to enter a famous chain hotel along the street, only to be turned away at the door by the doorman.
Experiencing a mix of heartwarming kindness and cold rejection, I finally reached 42nd Street and sought help at the law firm. A lawyer I knew well from our daily business interactions came out to greet me. He led me into an empty conference room, let me wash my hands and face, and listened to my story. Since it was right around lunchtime, he brought me a sandwich, allowing me to heal my exhaustion and hunger. I was also able to borrow a phone to call my colleagues from the NY office and let them know I was safe.
We confirmed that ferries were running from 34th Street across the river to Hoboken, New Jersey, so I expressed my heartfelt gratitude to the lawyer and headed toward the docks. I believe it was around 2:00 PM.
Getting Home
When I arrived at the docks, the line was unimaginably long. However, having no other options, I joined the queue. After waiting in line for nearly two to three hours, I was finally able to board a ferry. With virtually all other public transportation halted, I have nothing but the deepest respect and admiration for the crew of NY Waterway, who kept their boats running continuously without charging a single cent. I heard that nearly 500,000 people were evacuated by boat that day.
After patiently waiting in line and finally making it across on the ferry, it was after 5:00 PM and the sun was beginning to set by the time I arrived in Hoboken. Just before we docked, an announcement over the ferry’s PA system said: “Anyone who was within [X] feet of the WTC must undergo decontamination. Please report to the rear of the station.”
Since I had been inside the building itself, I obviously qualified. I walked to the designated area, where I was greeted by fire engines and burly firefighters. I wondered what was about to happen—and suddenly, they pointed fire hoses at me and blasted me with water! Even though it was a warm September day, it was late afternoon, and getting soaked to the bone left me shivering and freezing cold…
Soaked and shivering, I boarded an NJ Transit train and safely arrived in Glen Rock around 7:00 PM, after night had already fallen. Incidentally, the train conductor didn’t check tickets, so even though I had lost my commuter pass, I was able to ride without any issues. My wife was waiting for me at Glen Rock Station in our car, and I was finally able to return home safely.
Once I got home, the first thing I did was call my American boss, Mr. A, to report that I was safe.
“Thank goodness you’re safe!” Mr. A said. “I was really worried about you. Please get some good rest tonight. Tomorrow… you don’t have to rush, just come to the New Jersey office whenever you can. We’re having an emergency response meeting at 9:00 AM.”
…Wait, I don’t get tomorrow off? I thought to myself. Yet, despite my internal shock, I found myself replying, “Understood.” Our New Jersey office wasn’t accessible by train; it was located in a rural area that required a drive of just under an hour from where I lived.
That night, after the phone call with my boss, I went to the hospital—both to get myself checked out because I was worried about inhaling asbestos from the dust, and to have my daughter examined for her cold. By the time I finally went to bed, it was quite late, and I was genuinely worried whether I would be able to wake up the next morning.
The Next Day
The next day, I decided to go to the office. However, arriving right on time would have annoyed me (laughs), so I decided to show up a little late. I believe I walked into the conference room about 20 to 30 minutes after the meeting had started.
Since there were American staff present, the meeting was naturally being conducted in English. Mr. A was running the meeting, and when he saw me enter the room, he immediately said: “Ah, he’s just arrived. He was at the site yesterday and escaped from the 90th floor. I’d like him to tell us what it was like.”
He put me on the spot without any warning! Left with no choice, I described the impact when the plane hit, waiting on the 90th floor, walking down 90 flights of stairs, how the building collapsed the moment I stepped outside, and getting covered in dust.
Still, I couldn’t help but think: What kind of reckless boss forces someone to recount a traumatic experience like that out of nowhere (and in English, no less)?!
However, in the aftermath of the attacks, mental health and trauma care for 911 survivors became a major topic of social discussion across America. I learned that a core therapeutic approach for trauma is to talk about your experiences—to vocalize and release them rather than bottling them up inside. In that sense, because I was forced to speak out and release those memories the very next day, I actually owe Mr. A a debt of gratitude.
On a side note: our New York office officially opened for business at 9:00 AM, and American Airlines Flight 11 struck the tower at 8:46 AM. So why was I the only person in the office? Well, most of my colleagues tended to roll into the office right at the last minute before 9:00 AM. Furthermore, our American in-house lawyer, Mr. R, regularly arrived after 9:30 AM as his standard routine. In a way, you could say everyone except me had practiced excellent risk management!
Heroes
Speaking of our in-house lawyer, Mr. R: on my very first day at the New York office in April 2000, instead of welcoming me, he was completely ignoring me because he was excitedly talking about a new baby in his younger brother’s family.
Mr. R’s younger brother was a lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department. On that fateful day, he naturally responded to the World Trade Center—and never returned home.
Even now, I remember it vividly. As we were descending the narrow emergency stairwells, we repeatedly passed firefighters wearing thick, heat-resistant bunker gear, carrying heavy hoses and oxygen tanks on their backs, climbing up the stairs step by step. When I realize that those men were climbing up at that exact moment… it truly breaks my heart.
Speaking of heroes, I later read various books trying to identify the building security officer who urged us to flee while we were sitting anxiously on the 90th floor. Based on one book, I found a man who I believe was that officer. According to the text, he did not make it out either. I bow my head in profound respect for the courage and sense of duty of the citizens of New York.
The People
For a while after the terrorist attacks, life was the absolute definition of extraordinary. The media reported heavily on the aftermath day after day. One day, a newspaper (I forget which company published it) ran a lyrical, poetic article. In it, the reporter wrote: “…Among the scattered remnants of offices from the collapsed towers, I picked up a single corporate check. The name printed on it was [My Company’s Name]…” It was quite surreal to see our company’s name featured like that.
On another day, while I was working at our temporary office, I received an email from someone claiming to be with a New Jersey fire department. The message read: “I found your business card in the rubble, so I am sending a message to this email address. Are you safe?” Of course, I immediately replied to let him know I was alive and well.
There were many other moments where I was deeply touched by human warmth. Friends went out of their way to track down the hard-to-find phone number of our temporary office just to call me, and acquaintances shed tears of relief whenever we reunited.
Recovery and Business Continuity
While my life had been spared, I no longer had a place to work, so I had to commute to our New Jersey office for a while.
As a matter of fact, our company was scheduled to merge with another non-life insurance company on October 1, 2001—just weeks after the attacks. In the U.S., my claims service company was set to merge with our counterpart’s U.S. subsidiary. Because my company was designated as the non-surviving entity for accounting purposes, we absolutely had to close our accounting books by the end of September.
However, while we had taken backups of our accounting data, the concept of off-site storage—keeping backed-up data in a physically different location—was not yet widespread back then (let alone concepts like the cloud, which didn’t even exist yet). Our backup tapes had been sitting right next to our servers! As a result, all of our accounting data from January 2001 onward was completely lost.
We were in quite a bind. We consulted with our CPAs, and because our financial transactions were primarily just direct dealings with our Japanese parent company and weren’t overly complex, we decided to reconstruct our accounting books from scratch using the data remaining at the Tokyo headquarters.
As someone without specialized accounting knowledge, there was no way I could handle this task myself, so we had to rely on our accounting specialist, Ms. K. However, since Ms. K couldn’t commute all the way out to our rural U.S. headquarters in New Jersey, we arranged to rent desk space in a building in Jersey City. Even after the October 1 merger, we worked out of the Jersey City office for a while before finally joining our merged partner’s office in downtown Manhattan. Though some of the minor figures didn’t match perfectly, we managed to complete the accounting books and successfully finalize the merger operations.
On a personal level, rather than the trauma of the terrorist attacks, the stress of merging two companies with completely different corporate cultures, sitting side by side while dealing with lingering friction and underhanded office politics—all while being forced to move forward as a single company—was several orders of magnitude greater. The terrorist attack itself was a single, terrifying event, but the merger meant working in that tense, frictional environment every single day.
Now, 25 years later, I believe the organization has successfully integrated into a unified, harmonious company.
Returning to Japan
In 2004, my assignment in New York ended, and I returned to Japan. Since then, I have experienced postings in Taiwan and Bangkok, Thailand. Today, I work at a group company and am slated to reach mandatory retirement in March 2027.
During my time in New York, I felt the city’s recovery from terrorism firsthand and took immense pride in working in Manhattan, the center of the world. Though busy, my days were deeply fulfilling. In Taiwan, I was involved in managing a newly acquired company, and in Bangkok, I handled insurance payouts for Japanese manufacturers devastated by the massive 2011 Thailand floods. I am deeply grateful to my company for allowing me to gain such unique experiences that differ from those of a typical insurance company employee.
Revisiting Ground Zero
In August 2017, I visited New York on a business trip for the first time since returning to Japan in 2004. Using some free time on the weekend, I visited the 9/11 Memorial & Museum at Ground Zero, guided by Attorney R.
Seeing the visceral, realistic exhibits—the broadcast antenna from the roof of Tower 1, the crushed fire engine, and audio recordings of emergency radio transmissions—inevitably brought back vivid memories of that horrific day. I was also able to view the photographs and biographies of each victim, including, of course, Attorney R’s younger brother.
To ensure that this tragedy is never forgotten, I hope as many people as possible visit that site to learn and understand what truly happened on that day.
Afterword
In the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, four airplanes were hijacked, destroying the two towers of the World Trade Center and damaging the Pentagon, while one plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives, and countless more lives were lost in the subsequent War in Afghanistan. Once again, I offer my heartfelt prayers for the souls of all those who perished.
As we approach a quarter-century since 9/11 and our company merger, it feels like a different era entirely when I realize that our newly hired employees belong to a generation born after the terrorist attacks.
Looking at the world today—the war between Israel and Gaza, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait—human beings are still killing one another without end. Perhaps this is simply the fault of sad genetics embedded in the biological creature known as human beings.
When it comes down to it, conflicts between nations are the result of hatred fueled by the petty pride of leaders. I want people to reaffirm the reality that the victims of these conflicts are always ordinary people with families and loved ones—people who normally have nothing to do with politics or national disputes.
Even now, wars, terrorism, and slaughter continue to unfold across the globe in places like Ukraine and Iran. I pray from the bottom of my heart for a day when such tragedies vanish from our world forever.