Where Were You On 9/11?

Tim Sheehy, combat veteran, aerial firefighter, entrepreneur, and avid historian, shares how 9/11 impacted his life with a call to service.

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This is Tim Sheehy. Welcome to Tim Said podcast.

September 11th is one of those days that everyone remembers where they were when it happened. People from the sixties say this is where I was when Kennedy was shot. People in the Greatest Generation, say this is where I was when Pearl Harbor happened. This is where I was when Reagan was shot, etc., etc. For my generation, I'm 37, where were you on 9/11?

Where were you when it happened? What were you doing? Who are you with?

For me, I was in 10th grade, and I was in world history class upstairs. And the hallways started to be abuzz. Something's going on. Something's happening. I was in Minnesota, where I grew up, in Central Time. So, I ran downstairs because the floor below us, in the classroom, had a television in it.

So, I ran down there, and I think it was an English class down there or something like that. And we all went in and piled into this classroom with the TV. And, of course, after a while, "Look at that. I mean, the towers are smoking and you know what? What could be going on?"

I was already a pilot at that time. My neighbor was a Navy pilot growing up. So, he taught me how to fly. So, I got my pilot's license before I got my driver's license. Loved aviation and was passionate about it. And so obviously, airplane crash and high school 15, 16, 17-year-old wisdom, we're all trying to sit there and figure out what's happening as if we know what the hell we're talking about.

But, you know, as the only guy that had any sort of aviation experience in the room, everyone's looking at me. "Hey, what's going on, Tim? You know what's happening?" I said, "Well, I don't know. Must be an accident. I mean, obviously, a plane crashed into the World Trade Center there. It's terrible, but obviously, you know, it's going to be a tremendously challenging rescue operation.

But, man, I mean, obviously, it's an accident." And as we stood there talking about it, watching the television, we saw the second plane hit and you could tell in the room, I mean, even dumb high schoolers could figure out pretty quick you saw the speed of the plane. You saw it was aiming right for that tower. We all knew right away that something else was going on.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. And there was that feeling of change again, that that that kind of line in the sand of life was before and after. You know, a lot of in your life is decided. Hey, before that and after that, I think that was one of those lines for my generation and many Americans. For me, in particular, and for a small percentage of Americans, that meant whatever trajectory your life was going to be on was going to be different because I joined the military soon after that and spent all my adult years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I met my wife in the military. She also served in Afghanistan. All my best friends met there. You know, we started our company together and are still close. So, it really changed the course of my life. I was wounded. Some friends didn't come home. And I think that day means something different for a lot of people, for a lot of Americans.

It's another day on the calendar, a day to wave, the flag day to, you know, whatever it is they do. Obviously, for people who lived in New York or experienced lost on 9/11, has a very different meaning for folks like me who volunteered to serve and many for many of us because of 9/11. Obviously, it represents an entirely new trajectory for our life.

So, I don't feel the need to make it a national holiday. I don't feel the need to enshrine it all the time because I think the most important thing is moving forward and making sure the future is better, not focusing on the past. So we always have to remember and we always have to recognize what it meant for us and for our country.

But we can't let that trap us in the past, and we can't let that stunt our future, either. So it's important to remember it's important to try to bring back the emotions of that day. Watching what happened on the streets of New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., and then, of course, what happened for the 20 years after that, where we as a nation tried to grapple with what it meant to be attacked again.

And it hadn't happened in a long time. And, you know, for me, it means service above self. It really means that when our country was attacked, I spent, you know, the next decade and a half surrounded by people who truly felt that they had to answer the call to serve after 9/11. And that was a very impactful and formative experience for all of us then because, you know, you're adults, you're kids, you join when you are 17,18, or 19, and you spend the next, however long you're in, surrounded by people with a similar mindset.

So it's important to not forget what happened on that day. It's important we not forget what it meant for our country. And it's important that we also move forward, though we don't let that trap us and hold us back. So where were you on 9/11 and what does it mean to you