Sep 11, 2026 · 37 min · 10 segments
On this week’s episode, we mark 25 years since the September 11th attacks on the United States with reflections on that day from WTMJ's Erik Bilstad, ABC's Cheri Preston, and CBS Chief Washington…
Adam RobertsHost
Erik BilstadGuest
Neil DoyleGuestToday we've had a national tragedy.
Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country.
I have spoken to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York, to the Director of the FBI, and have ordered that the full resources of the federal government go to help the victims and their families and to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act.
Terrorism against our nation will not stand.
And now if you'd join me in a moment of silence.
Thank you very much.
For reference, I was just a couple days shy of turning eight years old and was in class at Evans Elementary School in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, when all of this was unfolding.
And I was actually talking with my dad earlier today on the day I'm recording this episode of Reporter's Notebook.
I was hoping that he could help me try to piece together some of the missing puzzle pieces in my memory banks of that day because I was at that age where you understand when adults around you are feeling unease or feeling stressed that something is wrong.
Yet you're too young at almost eight to understand the scope and magnitude of what was happening on a day like that.
But one of the things both my dad and I did remember very vividly about that day, other than us talking through that evening of what had happened as a family together, was how many American flags were adorned on houses down our street in Fond du Lac, as well as A lot of homes had gotten these, I want to call them poster boards.
They were just sort of signs that had an American flag and we will never forget written on them.
Then they were dotted all down the street, whether in people's yards or in people's windows, their front windows of their homes.
That was something I remember very, very vividly in the days and weeks after September 11th, 2001.
And I know that schools in New York were inundated with similar letters from other schools across the United States.
But it goes back to my point of there are a growing number of people in the United States, even younger than myself.
And I want to include that perspective in our reflections on today's episode as well.
And when we return, we will look back on how the day first unfolded here on WTMJ and hear from those in the newsroom who remember it very well.
Today we've had a national tragedy.
Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country.
I have spoken to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York, to the Director of the FBI, and have ordered that the full resources of the federal government go to help the victims and their families and to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act.
Terrorism against our nation will not stand.
And now if you'd join me in a moment of silence.
Thank you very much.
For reference, I was just a couple days shy of turning eight years old and was in class at Evans Elementary School in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, when all of this was unfolding.
And I was actually talking with my dad earlier today on the day I'm recording this episode of Reporter's Notebook.
I was hoping that he could help me try to piece together some of the missing puzzle pieces in my memory banks of that day because I was at that age where you understand when adults around you are feeling unease or feeling stressed that something is wrong.
Yet you're too young at almost eight to understand the scope and magnitude of what was happening on a day like that.
But one of the things both my dad and I did remember very vividly about that day, other than us talking through that evening of what had happened as a family together, was how many American flags were adorned on houses down our street in Fond du Lac, as well as A lot of homes had gotten these, I want to call them poster boards.
They were just sort of signs that had an American flag and we will never forget written on them.
Then they were dotted all down the street, whether in people's yards or in people's windows, their front windows of their homes.
That was something I remember very, very vividly in the days and weeks after September 11th, 2001.
And I know that schools in New York were inundated with similar letters from other schools across the United States.
But it goes back to my point of there are a growing number of people in the United States, even younger than myself.
And I want to include that perspective in our reflections on today's episode as well.
And when we return, we will look back on how the day first unfolded here on WTMJ and hear from those in the newsroom who remember it very well.
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