Home	Photo Gallery	Heraldry	Newsletters
Stephens History	World Trade Center	Hide History	Joke of the month
Bill Stephens	Soccer	Published	Thought of the Month
Brent Stephens	Links	Effective Management Training	Book

Unfortunately, the events in New York struck home with me closer than most people realize. The reason is that after losing my father tragically to mesothelioma (cancer from asbestos) I closed my management consulting business and joined Morgan Stanley in April of this year, and as the culmination of a five-month training program, the trainees are sent to New York for three weeks intensive training. My three weeks ended a mere three weeks before this tragedy.

Watching the footage made it “just too close for comfort”. So recently I walked those streets in and around the World Trade Center, bought a muffin from the street vendor each morning, walked over to building two passed all the subway hordes, rode the huge elevator to the 44th floor and the subsequent elevator to the 61st training room floor. I ate in the cafeteria on the 43rd floor and admired the while doing so. I took photos of the view from the break room toward the Statue of Liberty , the main training room and the view from my training room (I was in the overflow). Of the 205 graduating in my class, some worked in the World Trade Center – their safety is as yet unknown. I took a photo from my training room window, but ran out of film to take one of my training room itself (I was in the overflow room), the thought scarcely crossing my mind that it would shortly no longer exist.

Although thankfully the September training class were all evacuated in time, for a time this week, of a total 3,600 Morgan Stanley employees who worked in the World Trade Center, 800 remained on the unconfirmed list until today (Friday 14th) when the number dropped dramatically and thankfully to 12. The terrorist bombing in 1993 meant the company has a contingency plan better than most, the backup headquarters established at that time has been kept all these years since. But how does one plan to lose a whole department? One of our trainers related his story of survival of the 1993 bombing and how they sat in their offices for an hour or two, ambled down the stairs, had a beer in the pub across the road. That kind of attitude in this scenario meant signing your death warrant. We pray he is not amongst the unaccounted for 12.

On Tuesday I had dropped the boys at school and had gone back to the house to make some calls before driving to the office in Fort Worth where I work on the 15th floor. I was on the telephone to a company, and while on hold heard the news on the radio in the background. I rushed downstairs to put the TV on and was stunned to see the tower in flames – and shortly thereafter our tower get hit by the second plane on some of the floors we occupied. Watching people jump from that height to a certain death made me wonder what I would have done. I was there. The concept of jumping from that height is incomprehensible. It was hard enough to look down with a sheet of glass the only protection. What terror and desperation would have driven people to jump? Some were seen holding hands as a final act of solidarity.

They closed our office before I could make it in and I spent most of the day watching the events unfold in stunned silence. As soon as the boys got out of school I hugged on them. The thought that they could have been watching my death was once more incomprehensible. Thinking of the families of the policemen and firemen who now knew that their loved ones had gone in to a certain death in their effort to do what they had been trained to do. Rushing in where frightened (but not panicked) people were rushing out. Wondering if the rescue workers in all that dust and soot were being exposed to asbestos and the far-reaching consequences. Thinking of the families whose loved ones were trapped in the planes heading to their rendezvous with death. Did they know? Were they told: “behave and no-one gets hurt” while being flown to their execution? The plane that went down in the field – what acts of heroism caused that? With the lack of flames I wondered if the fuel was dumped in a desperate act to save a national treasure and the people who worked in it, as there were so few flames on the scene. The black box and on-going investigation will no doubt tell.

How does one react to such a tragedy? What were the events that led me to joining Morgan Stanley one month earlier so I was not there now? Would my two years in the medics in the military in South Africa and desire to help have caused me to be one of the helpers who subsequently became victims? Don't know. What I do know is that it is a life-changing event. The world will be a different place because of it. How I will change or how the world will change, I do not know. That it will change I do know and as I hug on my boys, my thoughts and prayers are constantly with those families grieving their loss, and those able to track down the perpetrators of this heinous crime and bring them to justice.

The world may have laughed at America and the system that caused chad marks to throw the election process in mayhem. But the world noted that there were no military called out to control the process. They should have noted that in the midst of this disaster there was no looting, there are reports of evacuations in an orderly manner. They now need to note America's ability to unite during a national tragedy and take action to hold those responsible accountable – as the Japanese Admiral commenting on Pearl Harbor noted “we have woken the sleeping giant!”