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On Monday night, Sept 10, 2001 the World Affairs Council honored John Kerry and John McCain for their work on behalf of normalizing relations between the United States and Vietnam. "I don't want to exaggerate in any way what happen between me and John Kerry," McCain said in a joint interview at the time. "In some ways, I think it is symbolic of what is happening in our country. There's been a healing and a reconciliation and a friendship amongst people who were divided on the issue of the Vietnam War."
What McCain didn't know, and couldn't know, was that even as he spoke America stood on the brink of a major war. One that would unite the nation and later would divide the country as it became more apparent that this was going to yet be another Vietnam.
On Tuesday morning, John Kerry was entering his Capitol Hill office, planning a quick stop before heading off for a 9:00 a.m. meeting of the Senate Democratic leadership, when a aide broke the news. "John," said Tricia Ferrone, "a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center." Kerry rushed to a television set and stared at a gaping hole in the side of the Manhattan skyline. "This is no accident," he said. There is no way, he told Ferrone, that a pilot could accidentally hit that building in clear flying conditions.
At 9:03 a.m., Kerry was at the leadership meeting, television on, when a second jet slammed into the Trade Center towers. Forty minutes later, the senators heard a loud "boom" in the distance. It was the third jet, crashing into the Pentagon two miles away. The United States was under attack. Seventeen minutes later, the extent of the destruction was becoming apparent to the world as the south tower of the World Trade Center began to crumble.
The phone rang in the Capitol room where the senators had gathered: The White House was being evacuated. Another plane was still in the air, the lawmakers were told, and Washington was a presumed target. Kerry returned to his office across the street in the Russell Office Building to tell his staff to contact his family.
Kerry's shock was turning to anger, he continued to watch the news unfold along side his aide David Wade. About an hour after the World Trade Center Attacks, a fourth jetliner plunged into the countryside eighty miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Frantic calls those aboard indicated that this airplane, too, had been hijacked by terrorists. At 10:28 a.m., Kerry and Wade watched footage of the World Trade Center's north tower crumbling. Seventeen minutes later all federal buildings in Washington were evacuated.
That evening the president addressed a shaken nation. "These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into cahos and retreat. But they have failed. Terrorist acts can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America." The president added that he had "directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
Later that evening on CNN's Larry King Live, Kerry called the attacks "an act of war" by a "stealth enemy." He said he was "heartened" by the president's resolve to pursue the sponsors and protectors of terrorists. The United States, Kerry said must respond "boldly and bravely--not recklessly--but boldly." "We must be prepared, absolutely, to move unilaterally, if we need to, to protect the honor and civility that we stand for. And I think everybody in this would support that based on the proper response with the proper information," Kerry said.
For Kerry, the days events had been a national tragedy, and a personal one. His friend Sonia Mercedes Morales Puopolo, a philanthropist and Democratic activist, had been board United Flight 175, the second plane to hit the World Trade Center.
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