Remembering 9/11, A Survivor's Story
Submitted by: Marine Forces Reserve
Story Identification Number: 200294171049
Story by Staff Sgt. Sam Kille, MARFOR Unitas PAO

ABOARD THE USS PORTLAND (LSD-37)(09/04/02) -- Nearly a year has now passed since the fateful September morning when terrorists used commercial planes to bring down the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York.

As a nation begins to heal and move on, there are many who will never be able to forget the tragic day when loved ones, friends, and coworkers sadly perished in the attacks. There are also those who were in lower Manhattan that morning, who witnessed the carnage-and were fortunate enough to have lived through a day that never seemed to end.

One of the lucky ones was Lance Cpl. Alan Reifenberg, a reserve Marine, currently serving on active duty with 3rd Platoon, Marine Forces Unitas, for a four-month long deployment to South America aboard the USS Portland (LSD-37).

For Reifenberg, an attorney with the Federal Prosecutors Office in Manhattan, it is hard to believe that a year has passed. For him, it only seems like yesterday that he arose in his Upper Eastside apartment at 7:30 a.m. to begin what would be another day at the office-at the Trade Center.

Having worked late the night before, the 1995 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law was a bit groggy as he showered, shaved, and then sat down in front of his bowl of Total brand cereal. As he readied himself for work, Reifenberg and his fiancée, Heidi, discussed plans for their wedding-which was only 19 days away.

"It really was like any other day," Reifenberg said. "I was thinking about the cases I was working on and I was going through responses from our wedding invitations."

As time drew near to head in to work, Reifenberg began to put on his suit. He can still picture exactly what he wore.

"It was a typical 'power' lawyer suit," he recalled, "navy blue, white shirt and a red tie. I had a deposition scheduled for ten O'clock that morning, and as I got dressed I was thinking through the questions I would be asking."

Dressed, Reifenberg gave Heidi a goodbye kiss and left his apartment at about 8 a.m. As he stepped out of what he described as a "modest elevator building" located on 90th Street and 1st Avenue, he found it to be a picture perfect day.

"I still remember how stunning it looked that morning," Reifenberg said. "The sun was out, it felt really nice on my face. It really woke me up."

Just like any other morning, Reifenberg then made the 10-minute walk to the Lexington Subway Station. Once there, he jumped on the Number 5 train, which would bring him downtown to the Fulton Street Station. After a half-hour trip, he rose out of the station into the maze of small streets and tall buildings that make up New York's Financial District.

From Fulton Street, Reifenberg could see the South Tower. He began to make the short walk toward it. Just as he stepped into the Plaza, about 50 yards from the Tower, a strange noise filled the air.

"There was a 'swooshing' sound, then an explosion, and it sounded really low," Reifenberg recalled. "It was if someone, one or two floors above me, had launched a shoulder-fired missile."

Because it sounded so low, Reifenberg, and several other people, ducked to the ground. After moving slightly forward, he then looked up and saw a huge black hole near the top of Tower 2.

"It was strange, for some reason I didn't even connect the loud noise with the hole which was now smoking," he said. "I just thought, 'wow-what a bad fire,' and stopped to watch along with everyone else. No one really knew what was going on there. We just stood in awe, and the street traffic stopped."

As the minutes passed, the fire became worse. There was more smoke; the flames grew. Pieces of smoldering paper began to fall toward the ground. After 10 minutes had passed, Reifenberg, and the growing crowd, witnessed the horror that most Americans only saw on television.

"People started screaming," he said. "I looked around and saw that people were looking toward the sky. I looked up and saw a person fall from the building and land on the concrete amphitheatre between the two towers. There was a terrible, loud thud. It was the worst sight and sound I had ever witnessed. Then two more people fell or jumped."

Reifenberg recalls seeing at least 19 people fall to their deaths within a five-minute period. At that point, he turned away, unable to look any longer. Shortly after he turned away, another large scream shot through the crowd.

"When I heard the collective scream, I turned to look," Reifenberg said. "As I did so, I saw another huge fireball coming out of the other tower."

It was like he was watching a disaster movie. Taxicabs came to screeching halts. Shop owners closed the metal gates in front of their stores. The crowd, which had become quite large, became hysterical and people took off running. Reifenberg ran as well.

"I was running down Fulton Street, half looking back over my shoulder; it was unreal," he said. "I stopped when I reached the end of Fulton Street, surveyed the scene, and began to wonder if there was any real imminent danger."

Reifenberg decided there wasn't, and began to walk back. He stopped in front of the Century 21 department store, where the crowd was beginning to form again. More paper and ash began to fall from the buildings.

Even after both explosions, Reifenberg still didn't know the gravity of what had happened.

"I've met and spoke to all sorts of people from all over the country, and I always hear, 'Oh, I knew right away it was a terrorist attack,' but I can tell you that not one of the people near me thought it was anything but a really bad fire," he said.

The first insight Reifenberg gained in to what was happening came from a UPS driver who said that he heard on the radio that a small plane had hit the towers.

"That made sense to me," he said. "Later, I heard that it was two planes, not one. I thought maybe the FAA's computers were down or something."

As time wore on though, rumors-fueled by bits and pieces of radio reports-began to circulate through the crowd.

"We learned that the Pentagon had been hit and we heard rumors that the State Department and Statue of Liberty had been hit," Reifenberg said. "Then, after we had heard that four planes were unaccounted for and were headed for New York, everyone became really paranoid."

Though the rumors were only partially true, Reifenberg began to realize that maybe it was a terrorist attack, and it was time to move on.

"I started thinking that maybe this wasn?t the best place to be standing-only fifty yards away," he said.

He then decided to seek out Heidi, who worked a few blocks north at City Hall. Though there were thousands of people now in the streets, he figured he would be able to spot her because of the purple shirt she was wearing. It wasn't going to be as easy as he thought it would be.

"There were so many people, you could hardly move," Reifenberg said. "Plus, people had left their cars running in the streets."

Reifenberg would have to walk six blocks out of his way to reach City Hall. Along the way, he saw women sitting on the ground, crying. An eerie feeling was in the air. Eventually, he arrived at City Hall.

"There were thousands of people in front of City Hall," Reifenberg said. "Someone with a bull horn came out and said that there had been a terrorist attack at the Trade Center, and that we should leave the area."

The gravity of the situation finally began to sink in.

"It hit me then," Reifenberg said. "It wasn't until that point that I realized that I wouldn't be going to work that day."

Unable to spot Heidi in the crowd, Reifenberg assumed that she must not have made it to work. He decided he would meet her at home. Unfortunately, the city had come to a standstill. The subways were closed. The buses weren't running. Not even New York's infamously stoic cab drivers were taking fares. He would have to walk-to the completely opposite end of the island.

As he made his long journey home, Reifenberg noticed that there were lines-nearly 50 people long-at every pay phone he passed. Cellular phones weren't working. It was very chaotic. He had just made his way to Chinatown when, once again, a collective scream drew his attention.

"I looked over my shoulder to see a gigantic dust cloud and it was moving," Reifenberg recalled. "I heard someone yell out that the tower was crumbling."

Once again, Reifenberg felt like he was watching a movie. The crowds were running away from the huge cloud of debris. He began to see people covered in dust and soot.

"It was strange to see businessmen, wearing thousand dollar suits, covered from head to toe in soot," he said.

Reifenberg continued his trek home. Along his way, he passed a dry cleaner where people were huddled around a television. Curious, he too stopped.

It was there that he actually saw what was really happening in his beloved city. It was on the TV that he saw the second tower come down.

He asked the people inside, "Is that the same one being shown again?"

"No, it's the other tower," was their reply.

"I can't believe this is really happening," Reifenberg said to himself as he consciously hugged the East River, on his way home, to avoid the big buildings on his way home-especially the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings.

It wasn't until Reifenberg reached the 40's and 50's blocks that the city seemed to be more normal. Yet he still had 40 blocks to walk before he would reach his apartment. Dripping with sweat, he finally arrived home at 2 p.m.-five hours after he had left what would become known as Ground Zero.

Anxious to see Heidi, he ran up the stairs to his apartment-totally expecting her to be there.

"But she wasn't there," Reifenberg said. "So, I freak out; I was pretty nervous. I picked up the phone to start calling around to find her and to let people know I was alright, but the phone didn't work."

He decided it was best to stay at home, and he turned on the television. Like Americans around the nation-it was intoxicating.

"I learned more in five minutes," he said of the coverage on TV, "than I did all morning long-and I was there."

Eventually, Reifenberg was able to get a few phone calls out to let people know he was all right; however, no one had heard from Heidi. It would be an hour and a half before his worries would disappear when he heard a key unlocking the door.

"She was in tears, uncontrollable for hours," Reifenberg said. "She was upset that I hadn't found her. It was naive of me to think that I would have been able to spot her in the crowd."

After Heidi had calmed down, she and Reifenberg, like many New Yorkers, began to prepare for the worst. In the grip of terror, Manhattan had been sealed off from the outlying boroughs of New York. The couple decided to stock up on consumables and headed to the store.

"We knew that we needed to get food immediately," said Reifenberg. "We had no idea of knowing how long we would be stuck at home. The shelves were being emptied in the stores. So, we were pretty busy getting a lot of bottled water and dried foods."

When they returned home, they tried to make sense of what had happened the same way most Americans did that day-they watched TV and hoped for the best.

"It was a scary night," Reifenberg said. "We were expecting more terrorist acts. I don't think I fell asleep until about five or six in the morning."

The fear they felt, also created many doubts for the couple. They both questioned whether or not they should go on with their upcoming wedding, or postpone it. After much deliberation, they decided to carry on with their plans, and were married Sept. 30. However, they did cancel their plans to spend their honeymoon in Hawaii. Reifenberg thinks they made the right choice.

"We had people come up to us and thank us for having the wedding," said Reifenberg. "For some, it was the first time they had smiled since that day."

The decision to go on with the wedding wasn't the only big decision they made. On the night of Sept. 11, Reifenberg came to a conclusion-he wanted to be a part of the fight against terrorism. Recently discharged from the drilling reserves, he decided to reenlist. Heidi understood his desire. The next day, Reifenberg telephoned his old unit, Company B, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, based in Frederick, Md.

"Yeah, I do public service (as a prosecutor) and that's great," Reifenberg said. "But I wanted to do something more-the stakes are higher now."

Reifenberg began drilling with 4th LAR again last October. When the opportunity to deploy with Marine Forces Unitas arose, he jumped at it.

"I wanted to be part of the military effort, even if it is in a small way," Reifenberg said. "I've left behind a lot to do this. I know it's a big interruption in my married life and my career, but it is so important for me to do something for the Marine Corps."

And though he knows that the odds of seeing combat are slim while he's deployed to South America with a unit mainly comprised of reserve Marines, Reifenberg still feels he is doing something important for his country.

"Somewhere, there's an active duty unit that has been freed up to fight because of the operational relief we are providing," said Reifenberg. "Right now, that's what matters most."

Reifenberg will return to the United States in December, happy to have served his country, and ready to carve out his future.

"It'll be nice to resume my life, to go back to work-a job I really enjoy," said Reifenberg. "And more than anything, I look forward to being with my wife. I just hope that people back home don't forget what happened. Many of the people who died were my age-just starting out in life. In a way, I feel guilty that I'm getting to move on with my life. I'm very fortunate."