‘Feels like yesterday’: Woman who witnessed 9/11 reflects on attacks, Afghanistan War

CHARLOTTE — A local woman was just a few hundred yards away from the World Trade Center when the second plane collided into the building on September 11, 2001.

Kathleen Britton was walking to work in Manhattan when her life changed forever. She heard an explosion and at first, she didn’t know what it was. The closer she got to the twin towers, she said that was when the roar of a second jet engine filled the streets.

“People started screaming,” Britton said. “Someone said ‘this one is a United flight.’ Someone said ‘the world is coming to an end.’ Someone said ‘it’s a terrorist attack.’”

Later, Britton saw people falling, burning, and dying. Then, the towers came down.

“Feels like yesterday in somebody else’s life,” she said.

And yet, 20 years have passed.

Many children born that day are now in college, and like other past American tragedies, Britton wonders how 9/11 will be viewed by a generation born after it happened.

In her conversation with Channel 9 anchor Scott Wickersham, Britton recalled a visit to the 9/11 Memorial with her niece, who was a child at the time. Her niece used to call 9/11 “plane day.” Then, they watched a movie together that talked about what happened that day.

“When that movie ended, she was very quiet,” Britton said. “I was worried. And she said ‘Aunt Kathleen did you know people who died that day?’ I said yes, one from my church. Three from my company. 12 from my neighborhood. She said ‘oh.”

It brought the tragedy home.

Britton hopes the moment her niece had -- the realization of how terrible that day was -- is something each generation learns about and learns from.

Also 20 years later, US troops have now pulled out of Afghanistan after a two-decade war meant to avenge the attacks on 9/11.

When asked if she thought the move opens the country up to another 9/11 down the road, Britton said it possibly does, and that is concerning to her.

“It took my whole life I had completely from me,” Britton said. “Does that mean we as a country should try to build a nation out of a group of tribes sharing a territory? That, I’m less certain of.”

An attack, a war, many lives lost in both. A past we hope not to repeat.

While the horrible images will stick with Britton, she also saw things that day that give her hope.

“People helping other people. I helped a group from the fed in Atlanta get out of Lower Manhattan. I worried about them for a while,” Britton said. “Someone said ‘I’m sure they were very happy you saved them.’ Well, I wasn’t the only person. Lots of people helped other people that day.”

Britton was laid off from her job at Merrill Lynch after the attack because, like so many other companies in Manhattan, Merrill Lynch were devastated by employees and office space that were lost on 9/11.

She moved back to Charlotte after that, and now, Britton has been invited to hit the Panthers’ “Keep Pounding” drum before the team’s first game of the season Sunday against the New York Jets.

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