JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As Americans remember the Sept. 11 attacks 20 years ago, an FBI agent now based in Jacksonville is looking back at the attacks differently than most.
He’s one of several FBI agents now in Jacksonville who worked the terrorist attacks from the day they happened.
Sept. 11, 2001 in Washington D.C., started with the bluest of skies. It was a happy day for Special Agent Alex Silverstein. It was his second day back at the FBI office in the capital since his daughter was born.
“Even today, 20 years later, especially here in Florida because we have lots of clear blue sky, I will look up and I’ll look at the shade of the sky and think that’s the shade of the sky on Sept. 11,” Silverstein remembers.
Everything was nice. Until 8:46 a.m. when the first commercial airplane crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. FBI Washington was soon abuzz with what appeared to be a horrific accident.
“And I turned on the television just in time to see the second plane hitting the building,” he said. “And it was immediately under it was immediately apparent that the nation was under attack.”
Silverstein and his fellow agents soon took the call: they were needed in New York.
Until 9:37 a.m.
The attacks hit closer to home. Those blue skies were broken by thick black smoke. It was coming from the Pentagon.
“We ran down to the parking garage, I think I threw on overalls over my suit and we headed out to the Pentagon,” he recalled. “Lights and sirens, down under the Third Street tunnel.”
The central command for the U.S. military, the headquarters for the Department of Defense, had been hit.
“We pulled up and the building was on fire,” Silverstein said. “The entire side of the building was on fire. We could see plain parts laying in the lawn there and while we were there we saw the roof collapse, so we knew at that point that anybody who had not gotten out already, they weren’t coming out. There is no training for what I saw.”
Silverstein, an FBI medic, and fellow agents knew what they had to do.
At first, it was a search and rescue mission but for the days and weeks after, it became a search and recovery mission. They spent long days picking through the rubble for evidence and, sadly, human remains. It haunts Silverstein to this day.
“I wrote to their families just to let them know when their family members were found that they weren’t alone,” he said. “And that we treated them with respect.”
A total of 184 people perished at the Pentagon.
As tragic as it was, he knew he was supposed to be there to help.
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” he said. “As terrible as it was, I would not want to be anywhere else.”
Silverstein had no time to rest. Shortly after wrapping up at the Pentagon, he would investigate the anthrax attacks. It’s all part of his experience for his position today: the Weapons of Mass Destruction coordinator. A job title that’s near and dear to his heart because he doesn’t want to see an attack on American soil ever again.
FBI Jacksonville agents plan to hold a vigil in front of their office. They will honor the lives lost during 9/11. Silverstein said several agents have died from cancer and other illness related to their exposure to elements around the crash sites in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.