OPINION

OPINION | MASTERSON ONLINE: Postcard from Ground Zero

This original version of this column was published Sept. 10, 2002. With the 20th anniversary of 9/11 now a week behind us, I felt it remains a fitting reminder of the promise we made to ourselves never to forget.

A year ago tonight, Jamie Stockton and Tyler Fowlkes of Fayetteville were browsing through postcards in the World Trade Center Marriott Gift Shop. Jamie, then 21, finally settled on a card of the dramatic Manhattan skyline and the Twin Towers.

Addressing it to friend, Beth Hartman, back in Fayetteville, he dropped the card into the hotel's outgoing mail basket at the front desk.

Jamie had graduated from Green Forest High School in 1998, earned his first bachelor's degree at the University of Arkansas within three years, and was completing a second bachelor's degree while holding down an important job. He and Tyler, then 27, were young executives with the M.A. Greenwood & Associates investment corporation of Fayetteville.

Five members of the Greenwood group had arrived two days earlier to join nearly 400 peers from around the country for an economics conference inside the 28-story grand hotel spread beneath the North and South towers.

The next morning in the hotel ballroom at 8:45, only minutes into the final morning session of the conference, Jamie was staring upward and listening to the speaker when he noticed the lights flicker. Then he heard the hanging glass panes that adorned the ceiling begin to make music: "Ping, tinkle, ping, ping."

When the walls of the massive room began to shudder, Jamie, who was seated near the back, knew something was seriously wrong. By then, he and others were on their feet and jogging toward the rear exit.

"I heard someone yell, 'Let's get out of here!' " he said. "And by luck, I found myself near the head of the pack as 350 of us began quickly exiting."

He hurried down a hallway for about 25 yards where it forked. The right passageway led to elevators for the North Tower. He sprinted left and down the mezzanine stairs into the hotel lobby, as did the crowd around him. Near the front door, he and Tyler found each other.

But bellmen were telling everyone to stay inside because debris was raining down from above. A magnificent angled glass awning already had shattered across the hotel's outer entry.

Jamie looked back into the lobby before stepping outside. He saw mounting human chaos and a haze beginning to filter into the open floors that loomed above the lobby area. The smoke was coming from the vicinity of the elevators. He still had no idea what had happened.

"I thought it might have been an explosion inside the hotel," he said.

He, Tyler and about 30 others decided to ignore the bellmen's warnings and take their chances outside. They stepped into a street still being showered with pieces of metal and concrete and what looked to him like pieces of airplane.

"We just decided we needed to get out of there," Jamie said. Hugging the hotel wall to their backs, they moved as quickly as they could to a point about 50 yards away where the rain of debris had stopped. Then they sprinted across the West Side Highway that fronted the Trade Center.

Across the street, they stopped at a bank of phone booths, but others around them shouted that they should keep running, so they ran farther southward toward the Hudson River at the tip of Manhattan Island. At a marina, they stopped at a pay phone to call relatives to let them know they were alive. Jamie reached his father, Jim, in Harrison long enough to say he was all right. Tyler couldn't contact his wife.

Still, no one around them knew what had just happened.

"I knew about the '93 terrorist bombing in the back of my head," Jamie said. "Someone said a helicopter had struck the building. We just didn't know."

Tyler walked outside the marina and stared toward the river with his back to the hotel now only two blocks away. Jamie had just joined him when they heard the drone of a jet plane and a loud explosion behind them. Turning, they saw black smoke and fire billowing from the second tower.

Jamie now realized how much better off they'd have been to flee northward into Manhattan rather than into this cramped area, trapped by the river. But the revelation had come too late. They continued moving southward into a small park area with another bank of pay phones. There, Tyler finally reached his wife.

Someone milling around them had a small radio and a crowd gathered to listen for news. Then suddenly, the South Tower collapsed. Both men instinctively headed another 20 yards south toward a second marina.

"We really didn't have anywhere to go," said Jamie, "and we could see this huge avalanche of dust and debris rushing toward us in a rolling cloud. We had sat down on a bench about 10 yards from the river."

Tyler quickly stripped to his bare chest, removing his T-shirt to use as a breathing filter. Jamie followed his lead. They covered their heads with their suit coats as the wave of choking dirt swept over them.

"You couldn't see three feet in front of you," Jamie said. "I could hear hundreds of people gagging and choking all around us."

The dust storm lasted about 40 minutes, and as soon as they could see to move, they walked even farther around the southern edge toward Battery Park.

"We were just above where the ferries depart for the Statue of Liberty tours," Jamie said. The vendors all had abandoned their hot-dog and novelty stands. Then the second tower crumbled. This time, however, the densest cloud from that collapse moved away from them.

"There was still dust filling the air. We had taken shelter with three older women in the window ledge of an old fort in that little park."

Seemingly from out of nowhere, a ferry pulled alongside the shore and began collecting anyone who wanted to cross the river into New Jersey. However, it was difficult and dangerous to board passengers over the safety rail, especially with the boat rocking.

Tyler climbed over the railing and wound up on the deck ahead of Jamie. At that point, a ferry official said that vessel could carry no more passengers. Jamie stood, bewildered, wondering where he would go now, especially with his friend already aboard.

Suddenly, a stranger on the deck reached out his hand toward Jamie and shouted, "Come on," motioning for him to jump on and over the railing.

"I was the last one on that boat, I believe," Jamie said.

In New Jersey, they wondered what had happened to the other three in their Greenwood group. As luck would have it, all would return safely to northwest Arkansas.

Through a stroke of what could only have been fate, Jamie and Tyler were able to catch a ride back to Arkansas with Steve and Sharon Stafford of Green Forest. The Staffords' flight had been canceled, so they had rented a car to drive back to northwest Arkansas and were connected with Jamie and Tyler through Jamie's father in Harrison and cell phones.

Remember that postcard of Manhattan and the World Trade Center towers Jamie had mailed the night before to Beth Hartman? Well, Beth, who now lives in Little Rock, received it enclosed in an envelope six weeks later.

Inside was a note explaining how it had been discovered amidst all the incredible rubble. Thoughtful workmen figured she might just like to have the memento of Jamie's trip.

Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.

Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.

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