Friday 7a - 9/11, 25 Years Later

0:00Toronto today with Greg Brady remembers 9-11 25 years later I'm only half a minute I'm on United 93 and it's been hijacked by terrorists They have a bomb. I'm going to take this one down as well. Hopefully I just want you to say hello to everyone. And I'm going to be home. And I'm going to play that. I don't know if I'm going to be able to play that or not. Bye. Rather remarkable. Hard to hear. I got that. I understand that. In your way, the pros and cons. Should we play this? Should we not? Do you need to hear it?

1:00Do you not? And I think on this day in the immediate wake of September 11, 2001, we had all the same heartbeat. All this stuff was put aside. We didn't worry about politics. We didn't worry about who's on what side who believes in this. I was living in the States then not able to vote on H1B visa and Republicans and Democrats put it all down. Just laid it all down on the ground. There were no fingers pointed how this happened. You should have done this. You should have done that. Remember also that's a year after a brutally divided country about the election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Who won Florida? That went on for weeks and months while I'm living there. But everybody on every side of politics just put everything down. I've often made the point. The New York Yankees were three time defending World Series champions. All of us were rooting for the Yankees. Come on. You know, you can hate the Yankees. You know you didn't want the Arizona Diamondbacks to win.

2:00It was something you could give back to the people of New York. I wasn't a big fan of George W. Bush. I can tell you that after 9, 11, either. But my heart soared when he walked to the Mount at Yankee Stadium during the World Series weeks later in that city and through and was right on the mound and through a perfect strike. A gentleman that was there that night will ask him about it was the governor of New York state at the time. And he was a three time governor as well. George Pataki joins us now on Toronto today. I appreciate your time on a special day when you look back a quarter century ago to all the old emotions just overcome you. And I absolutely 25 years later when I think of going down to ground zero. It's just a nightmare. You know, you just have horrible memories of that day. Almost 3000 people who were murdered and the horrible scene in Lower Manhattan that

3:06looked like a landscape from hell. And but you also think of the courage, the incredible strength that in the Yorkers and Americans and indeed people from across the world showed in responding to those horrible attacks. When you set up your day as it was scheduled and obviously it took a turn and the scheduling of it would have drastically changed. I mean, we've all witnessed the and it still it still gives a scoops bumps in a not great way. The image of the president reading to the kids in the classroom. What was your morning shaping up like governor on that day? Well, that morning I actually happened to be in the city, which I usually wasn't, but I got a call from my daughter and we were watching as we saw the second plane hit the second tower and knew we were under. What you do to them is you just spring into action and I called Mayor Giuliani, told him I was activating our emergency response team.

4:07I call president Bush to urgent to cut down the airspace, to shut down the airspace over in New York. I closed the bridges, the tunnels, the airports and called up the National Guard, sent in the state, please, the New York City and just from there it was just, I had a great emergency response team and we worked hard to make sure we did everything possible to get through that day. I don't know when I'll come back to the day, but I don't know when it felt normal again for anything. Again, I was living in Michigan at the time. You'd keep going in and you're like, it was literally like that. You'd remember the quite famous letterman show when he first came back and he just had to address when the elephant in the room was we're going to have to find a way. We're going to have to pick each other up and smile and do things and go on dates and laugh at things and it just felt like weeks if not month. I've never felt a feeling quite like that governor and we've obviously been through a lot of other stuff in the last 25 years.

5:10You're absolutely right. That was the worst terrorist attack on American soil ever and it was something that it took more than a month to recover. I remember you'd look down the lower Manhattan and you'd always see where those towers stood and instead you'd see this void in the skyline. When Mike Bloomberg got sworn in as mayor on January 1st almost four months later, you could still see the smoke from the fires that were still burning at ground zero. So actually the site itself it took clearly years to bring back but the city took probably close to a year too. People were afraid. They wouldn't come to New York. They wouldn't go to the restaurants. They wouldn't go to the theaters. They wouldn't go to the hotels. It was a real struggle to keep the companies who had been there there to bring people back to New York to show us that we were safe and but as you just said, we lifted each other

6:11up work together. I remember President Bush throwing out the first pitch at a Yankees game maybe 10 days later, things like that, sent the message that we were going to be okay. I don't know where you were for that game. One of the things I think we can say jokingly now is it was the year it felt like the fall anyway, everybody became a New York Yankees fan, Boston Red Sox fans, Toronto Blue Jays fans. We all wanted that for the city. I really do believe that and I don't know where you were the night that that President Bush strode to the mound. I don't know how much he was practicing but in all that tension and all that difficulty, that was a real moment. Like again, you talk about goosebumps and the positive going, we all just exhaled, didn't we? What was that night like for you? You know, absolutely. I was there with the President and I'll just tell you one story. First of all, he had to wear a bulletproof vest.

7:14The security didn't want him to go, didn't want him to throw out the pitch but he thought it was important so he was going to do it. So I'm talking with him. He goes, Pataki, it's going to be hard to throw the pitch with his bulletproof vest. So he goes under the stands and is warming up and direct jitter is there and jitter goes, Mr. President, you better not bounce at the boo you. I just to lighten the moment and the President laughed and he went out there and threw strike and it was one of those moments that not only brought us together but also sent a message that, hey, America and New York, we're going to be okay. Yeah, there's no question. It ended up being a moment like that. When did New York feel the thing started to turn? We'd all, the story on the news every night was going into Afghanistan supporting our soldiers and I say, are because Canada, as you know, was heavily involved in the coalition

8:16and I'm on that side of the border raising an American family and met my wife and Ann Arbor Michigan and we ended up getting married. But I bring that up to note that we still felt like it just again, we're trying to focus on our everyday lives and go to work and raise kids and try and enjoy things. And I just wonder when New York felt like it was New York again. Would you even say it might have been only the last couple of years of you being governor and it took that long? It really did take that long. You know, you do everything you could to bring the tourists and people back to New York and it just took forever. And the other thing that was a real crisis is companies wanted to leave. We lost over 20 million square feet of office space and I was getting calls hourly. We have to get out of New York. We lost our space. Our workers are frightened. And it took years and but I'll tell you, 25 years later, you got a lower manhand and

9:20it's one of the most vibrant parts, not just of the city, but of America and it's full of life. It's full of spirit, business, people, residents, parks. So I'm very proud of while it took a long time, we did it right and we've come back better than ever. George, did you have your doubts that it could happen and what happened that way? It would be easy to go home at the end of a certain day or after a certain bad run regarding business and tourism, the like and go, we won't have the same city again. You're right. It did, but did you have your doubts? No, I had quite a litter that I never had my doubts. This is New York. This is America. We're here in neighbors and we were getting along back then and I hope we do once more in the future. So I have my doubts as to how long it might take, but I never doubt it. We're going to come back. New York is a great place and we've survived a lot of difficult times and we have some challenges

10:21now, but we'll get through them and it's just a wonderful place with great people and we saw that on September 11th and we're still seeing it 25 years later. I hope you know it as a closing note. There are those in Canada kind of pushing back against. I know there's been some rhetoric that's for sure and I'd say there's some talks about the public society. I also think there's some Canadians concerned that some of our politicians have been too demonstrative, have said too much. I think we'll make good and be friends again. I just want to know from your political acumen and just your human experience. We want to get back to being best friends and being able to play each other in sports and go at each other and have it be good natured. I'm worried about it but I'm hopeful like you were about New York that our US-Canada relationship will go back there. What are your observations? I'll tell you, we're going to be fine. You know, it's a tough patch right now and you can blame people on both sides but blame

11:24doesn't get you anywhere. You just have to sit down, hash out whatever differences you have and it might take a while but it's going to happen. I mean Canada has been a great neighbor for the longest period of time, our closest neighbor and you will be again and we will be partners, we will be friends and we will both hopefully have great futures together. Governor Pataki, I can't thank you enough for the time. Those words mean a lot to our listeners for sure and you have our thoughts certainly going into. It's always going to be a somber anniversary and a reflective day. You're in our thoughts for sure and I thank you as somebody on that side of the border then as well who did so much for the state of New York and returning things as to as normal as possible in the days and weeks after such a terrible event that happened to the city and the country. Thank you very much for the time today on this side of the border. Well, thank you, great being on with you and good luck going forward.

12:2525 years later, you look back with sadness but you look ahead with confidence. Governor Pataki, great stuff from him. That's again, leaders lead, right? We all have to be our own leader, whether it's in our house, whether wherever we are, we have to lead sometimes. We all got our moments. You can imagine what that's like going in front of cameras in a microphone and telling people, we got to pick it up. We're going to be okay. This is we all were suspended in disbelief watching ground zero, watching people look for their loved ones, all that collective trauma. What would daily existence look like? It was terrible. We've been through some things since then. Like I said, pandemic, lots of other stuff. We got a lot of worries right now about about the future. But again, to me, you got to be defiant sometimes. You got to go back, you got to go back underground in the subway. You got to get on an airplane again. You got to open your store. You got to teach kids. Everybody even crowding back into sports stadiums.

13:26That felt momentous to go back to live sports because it was just paused for a good day and a half. You didn't know what was next. When would the terrorist strike next? I'm with 110,000 people at Michigan Stadium. That was the first sporting event I went to was a Michigan Wolverine football game to work it. And you're just not sure. You're not sure what should happen next. All right, on the way back, Gander Newfoundland plays such a critical role in our country's lore. It also means something to so many Americans just ask them. Yeah, we're still having conversations beyond all the BS that's happening at the top levels. 25 years ago, and Buzniki was on the 106th floor of the North Tower of the World's Trade Center when terror struck. We remember him. We remember the 24 Canadians who died. We remember the 40,000 Canadians who fought, the 2,000 who were wounded, and that 158 who

14:33died, avenging this terrorist attack on our closest neighbors and friends. That's Pear Poly. I've put a video out at the foot of the World Trade Center, put it out overnight. We spent some time in New York, was on a lot of the chat shows yesterday. Some of the business shows as well, making a business case, but today it'll be solemn. It'll be at a 9 11 memorial ceremony with some of the Canadian families that still live in New York. We spoke to one gentleman yesterday who escaped the World Trade Center, one of the rare few who did. There's also a story to be told about Gander Newfoundland, pretty legendary place in Canadian American relations because of how this small Newfoundland town responded when the US was struck by this tragedy and it's important to tell the story when they closed their airspace in the US. There's 38 planes packed with 7,000 international passengers, not just Americans, but 14 countries. They had the land at Gander International Airport. I'm guessing, not been there. A tiny airport and all of a sudden overnight, you got a community of 9,000 people and 7,000

15:38people are getting off planes going. I guess this is home for the next few days. So it's got a rather historic role for how we treated the Americans and how I hope we'll both treat each other once again someday. Jackie Buttons works with Senator Leo Husakis in the Canadian Senage to form a broadcaster as well and knows a little bit about Gander Newfoundland and it's kind enough to share some plots this morning. Jackie, it's a great pleasure to have you on. Thank you. Absolutely. It's a solemn day, but it's certainly a pleasure to join you. Now tell me your link to Gander Newfoundland. I actually finished high school in Gander. I'm from Newfoundland originally grew up in Labrador City, but did finish high school in Gander and actually, that's how you and I connected on this is because I posted about another connection that the Americans have to Gander. It was in my final year of high school. It was Christmas of 1985 and a military plane carrying close to 200, I believe, military

16:39service people from Egypt. They were on their way home to the US. They had made one stop in Germany and then they made their next stop in Gander, Newfoundland as is often the case or was certainly back then. They had a refueling stop and on take off their final leg of that journey home for Christmas, the plane crashed in Gander killing everyone on board. I remember I got up for school late that morning and I just remember looking at the window and I could see the smoke and my sister called. She worked at the airport. She called my mom and she said, it's terrible news. That's what I always think about with Gander as well. I went home two years ago and there's a beautiful memorial park set up off the highway near the crash site that the families of those American soldiers are paid for. They still remember Gander and have a special place in their hearts because of the way that they were treated when they came there to see where their loved ones had died.

17:42I can't imagine in school in 1985, right? We had no internet. We're not texting. Like when a news story happened, you know the news were really well. It was news for probably weeks on end in Gander regarding this crash in 85. I mean, people talked about it and still talk about it today, but absolutely. Like I said, especially when families started traveling there to see the site because most Americans don't know where Gander is. Probably have barely heard of a newfoundland, but they wanted to see where their loved ones were their loved ones perished and the people of Gander opened their arms to them. Watching the reaction in the day subsequent, I mean all our brains and perspectives are going a mile a minute and there's also just a giant hole through our hearts 25 years ago today. So when you've watched Gander respond in the news stories to just basically doubling their population, but these are all people that may have packed one bag or had nothing beyond

18:45like like a like a shaving kit in essence and they welcome them in and kept them and fed them and kept them warm and put a roof over their head. How did you react to that? It actually brings tears to my eyes right now. Greg thinking about it because it does in many ways seem like it was just yesterday and I imagine I was no longer living there at the time but my mom certainly still was and she take anybody in. She did not, but she was very pivotal and she made meals and took meals up and stuff as did everybody as did everybody. And by the way, they spread out beyond Gander as well. They spread out to other surrounding areas to little fishing, not fishing communities, you know, little places like Lewis Port. They were everywhere in Central Newfoundland and I think about it because I spent a lot of time at Kendra Airport actually because my sister worked there. She worked for citizenship and immigration and Gander was known at that time to people

19:46around the world fleeing communism and other tyranny as the gateway to freedom. Many Cubans actually defected there because it was known as the gateway to freedom. So it took on a different significance as the gateway to freedom on 9-11 in 2021, 25 years ago. And the people that got off those planes, many of them had been forced to stay on the plane for anywhere from 8 to 24 hours before they were allowed to disembark because the airport couldn't handle everyone getting off the planes at the same time and they were forced to get off those planes without taking their luggage. So they wouldn't have had anything and people showed up at the airport with everything to make sure that these people were comfortable. And I heard someone ask yesterday, do you think the people at Gander would do that today 100% without a doubt? 100%? It doesn't matter. Yeah. Absolutely. It is not about a trade war or this or that for the people at Gander and the people of

20:47Newfoundland, they wouldn't even have to think about it. They would do it again. I'll tell you what, too. You've got a great lens and I'm running out of time, but I want you to stretch out your answer if you feel like it. With where we are, you get to see this from a lens in Ottawa working closely with Senator Husakis there. I'm desperately sad about where the relationship is between Canada and the US. I also think many of the leaders on both sides of the border are dining out on poll numbers and making it worse. I was at a, I've been at a few sporting events in the last couple of weeks where the American anthem, it doesn't matter who steps up and sings it. A 20 year old girl or woman, a 50 year old man and some people are loudly screaming at that person and booing vociferously, the star spangled banner. It enrages me. I want to know sort of, do you have hope? We'll put this all back together and people will be people and we'll support each other and be friends again.

21:47I do and I will speak for myself, not from my boss. I always try to be very careful with that. It's good policy to keep the job. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, for sure. Not have him getting a phone call today and saying, did you know? I do have that same hope and I do think look for sure Donald Trump is driven by whatever the heck it is that drives him on any given data, any given moment. It's certainly not what's best for the people of his country or certainly not ours. I do have hope. I think that Donald Trump is someone to be out waited and do I think there's damage done? Sure, absolutely, but I do think it will write itself. I get upset when I see things like anthem's being booed on any side of the border. I understand the frustration. I understand the anger. Don't get me wrong. But you know what is Canadians?

22:49You know, I don't want to judge anybody and make anybody feel bad, but it's just what happened in Gander is who we are as Canadians. And that's who I think we will forever be. I don't think this will change who we are and I don't think I think the American people when it comes right down to it. That friendship will remain intact. Like I said, some work to do for sure, but I think people to people, we are all still who we were before Donald Trump and we will all still be who we are after Donald Trump. Nailed it. Totally agree. Jackie, thanks so much for your reflections today and that look forward as well. It's a pleasure having you on. Absolutely. You have a wonderful day. Jackie, button, joining us from Ottawa. There's no NFL football game tonight. It's the first weekend of the NFL season, by the way. And but what's weird is was there a was there actually a game on Friday?

23:52Yes. But in Australia, it's a weird one. This happens all the time. You may watch a sporting event and go, I don't know even what time it is where I live right now because I'm living vicariously through the sporting event, the nogginal Olympics. Do you remember that first time NHLers are playing there, right? Dominikovsky shut out. I don't need to remind you all that stuff or at least shut out in the shoot. Why isn't Wayne Gretzky going out on the ice, all that stuff? But I think that game was on a tune. I woke up. I'm trying to stay up. I'm a 24 year old guy living on my own. Not for the first time, but living on my own in my own place for the first time without roommates post post undergrad. And I remember absolutely falling asleep in that game all the time falling asleep. And I can't blame you if you were falling asleep last night during the 49ers and Rams game. It was played in Melbourne, Australia. Now there are 14 hours ahead of us, 17 hours ahead of the US Pacific time. So there's the practicality of it anyway. It's regular season.

24:52Do we need a regular season game in Australia? Well, opinions would vary on that. But the players had to travel 8,000 miles from California to Australia. They picked two West Coast teams so that the trip business long. So the 49ers and Rams played last night. Both those teams have to play next Sunday. They'll barely figure out where they are by like Tuesday of next week. And I get it. They're not in squished into seat 34 C. I didn't pick that for any other reason other than it's random and a toddler's kicking the back of their seat. And there's a lot of weird announcements going on. They're on a private plane. I got that. But nobody could quite figure out even what time the game was on last night or what to do. And I'll tell you who really struggled with it. The head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, his Kyle Shanahan, have a listen two days ago to him, try and explain when the game was. He's already in Australia and he can't figure it out. When I look at my clock and it says the time and then I try to see my family's time and then this says the time, but it says yesterday. I don't even get how that's possible. So I feel like I'm in the future.

25:53And then also when we play on our Friday, which I think is a Thursday in the US for such creatures of habits. So I call it today Tuesday. No, wait, sorry, I call it today Wednesday, which is the first day we put in a game plan. But I think it's Monday, however though it's Sunday and the present. So like, I'm going to mess that up all week if you guys asked me. But today is just our first day of the game plan, which is a Wednesday. And we'll put in some month, Thursday, Friday is the final part of the game plan. Saturday we walked in when we play on Sunday, which is a Friday in Australia and a Thursday in the US. So don't ever make me do that again. What can I, I think I got it, but just in case give it to me again, I wasn't listening to quote something from the Lego movie. I didn't understand what he said. They are 16 hours ahead, but it's a 17 hour trip. They played that gave a 10 30 in the morning, local time yesterday. We all can get up and start a call frowned early or maybe some tennis or pickle ball or even we've all had to go play. We've all watched our kids play hockey, tournament, baseball, soccer and they're like,

26:54Oh God, we got a 8 a.m. Sunday game. Who, who's doing this to us? But this is the NFL 10 30 to start. You got to start warming up and taping yourself up at like seven. Did these guys even ever get on track worth noting the 49ers squashed the Rams 27 seven. They got their way earlier. They adjusted the Rams flew like they wanted to go in and out. The 49ers were there all week and you got to do local media and show up and shake, shake hands and I don't know if babies were kissed, but they got to be there and be the ambassadors for the NFL there. The Rams are like, we're just coming in and playing the game. We're the road team. We can do that. They're both road teams, quite obviously. The Shanahan comments reminded me of this from space balls, which thankfully they're remaking. It might not be great, but anything to see Rick Moranis be Rick Moranis again is dark helmet. I'll take it. This exchange from the 1987 film was kind of like Kyle Shanahan explaining what time it was in Australia. What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?

27:54Now you're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now is happening now. What happened to then? We passed that. When? Just now. Where it now now? Go back to then. When? Now? Now? Now I can't. Why? We missed it. When? Pretty reasonable questions. I'll told. Maybe you didn't notice this yesterday. Now I've talked about this. Let me read this text about Mark Carney not being in a New York city today, but let me give you this. A person thanks us for the show. No problem. It's free. It will always be free. We're here for you. Have only been listening since 7 a.m. Okay. Now I'm not reading the rest of your text. No, I am walking my dog just on on me. The weather day is exactly the same as September 11th. Gave me chills when I realized that. On September 11th, oh one, we were in Ottawa and golf course for a tournament filled with amateur golfers from across North America. We left the clubhouse at 830, didn't meet up with a Marshall until 1030. I'll never forget the chill when he told us everything. The attack, the towers are gone. The skies are closed.

28:55We all looked up. Shock. God bless everyone affected by that day. We must never forget it. Person writes can't believe our PM isn't there today. Headshaker. It's so interesting. He says that because two years later in 2003, when there was a blackout, I was on the golf course in Michigan, hacking away and you get in the car. Nobody had told me anything. I had a cell phone, but it's not textible in 2003. You'd have to call me to tell me something and most of the phone lines were down anyway. So you get in the car. You turn on the radio, your stations all crackly, another station's crackly and you're like, what's going, are the cars going to work? The stoplights were all out. This is all of a sudden $5 a gallon, which was a big deal then when it was like $1.8 a gallon in suburban Michigan. So I had one of those. This guy had it with 9.11 and had that experience. Having somebody drive up on it in a golf cart and tell you when you're on the eighth hole. If you have stories, by the way, about that you want to relate to us about the where were you and did you find out rather in a significant way, happy to take those via text.

29:59I'd love to tell your story as well. And just maybe you're overall thoughts. Learning in politics is everything. The federal government yesterday, what was yesterday? What was a big announcement about Ukraine and funding for Ukraine? The day before though, this is important. The prime minister looked in the camera and warned Canadians like he did this. We played the clips. Brace yourself. Didn't say that. But basically there's pain coming, severe economic headwinds, financial pain. We're in this cross border battle. Only one leader is called at a war and that's been our leader. Now I'm on our leader's side versus the United States. Make me choose Karnier Trump and 100 times out of 100. Yes. Let's back our prime minister here and back our country because we've got workers and jobs and lives depending on getting a deal done with the United States. But I did wonder about two things. I've wondered should the prime minister be in New York City?

31:02We all have those. I should have gone to this thing. It's a 25 year commemoration of 9-11. It's a pretty important moment. We just talked about Canada's support of America. America has always protected us. We've been there for them. They've been there for us. That's pretty universally understood. The prime minister isn't there today. He's in BAMF. Yesterday, on the eve of 9-11, it was time to roll out the red carpet and announce a century long. I didn't stutter. A hundred year strategic partnership with Ukraine. There are multi million dollar turning into billion dollar commitments for defense production, air defense packages, long term industrial pipeline. We're going to build a pipeline for Ukraine. Not a single physical thing has been done to build a pipeline for us. In the last 18 months, let alone the previous 9-1-1-1 half years. I don't know how that lands. This is not a debate about whether Ukraine deserves solidarity.

32:02The war is grinding into a fifth grueling year. They're citizens. They're brave citizens. Picked up a weapon and said, I'm going to defend my country, my town, my city, my street, my community, my family's house. Russia's invading us. Teach me how to fight for those who didn't know how to fight already. I'd like to think we could do the same thing someday. And yet I hope we'll never have to. I'm a little past fighting age, but everybody's doing it. And so we've been shoulder to shoulder you with Ukraine. I got no problem with that. Let's support the Ukrainians, however, and whenever. But there's a bit of a chasm, a gap between supporting Ukraine and watching us on the eve of 9-11, lock into a multi-generational 100 year foreign commitment. We're stretched pretty thin at home. You just heard the Prime Minister say that. I don't think the next day, if you're going to tell the citizens to prepare for scarcity on day one, on day two, you can't hand out billions of dollars to another country, even

33:08Ukraine. There's a hierarchy of responsibilities to me. That's what a government's supposed to do. Well, hey, get out of our way a little more like every got, can you get out of our way? Help the people that need the help, the people that don't need help. Steer clear, those are really reasonable things. But if we got working families, skipping meals, people have jobs. Forget the people who don't. They're important too. We got working families going to work and then going to a food bank line in the late afternoon. We're watching all this stuff. None of it's good. All this economic hostility, all the rhetoric. I hate every second of it and so do you. But I kind of expect our leaders to look inward first. And right now I see a government that's really energized by the photo ops. Oh my goodness, are they ever? I couldn't have predicted. They're like, what's the worst thing Karni could do regarding Ukraine? And I'm like, well, the day after he tells everybody, prepare for scarcity and some tough times. He did that.

34:08He did that on Wednesday. Yesterday was Thursday. You're going to say, you know, we're going to have some desperate moments and some tough conversations in our living rooms and kitchen tables. I would say the worst thing you can do is announce a hundred year for and commitment to any other country. I, that's just how I see it. There's, it's an optics disaster for, for some and for others, it just feels like, so they've got a permanent line of credit and we know domestic taxpayers are absorbing, tighten your belts, Canada. He said it. He said that, not in so many words. Don't tell us we're having economic hardship one afternoon under 24 hours later. How am I going to cheer for you building a pipeline in Ukraine the next morning? How am I going to do that? I don't want them to lose the war. I don't want Russia to take over Ukraine. But how am I going to do that without feeling you're not prioritizing your own people enough? Maybe you got thoughts on that. 416-870-6400. Happy to hear it. We talked about the stories of 9-11 and there are so many stories.

35:09I'm going to talk about the first responders after 8 o'clock and it's long overdue this morning. I haven't done everything right this morning, but I want to talk about the first responders. But what about being in the air in the skies during 9-11? A previous guest we've had on a totally unrelated topic was so, I asked if anybody was, he was kind enough to respond. David Groosel is joining us on Toronto today from the States and welcome on, David. I appreciate you being back on. Good morning. Good to talk to you again, Greg. First of all, you're in the States or the first guest we've had on, but we had the governor, George Pataki on, he gave us a real, I, you know, bird's eye view of what that day was like, but also what it means to wake up 25 years later. How are you reflecting on that day 25 years ago and the time that has passed, David? Well, very happy to wake up 25 years later. It didn't occur to me until weeks after 9-11 that I could have just has easily been on a hijack plane as one that wasn't, you know, it didn't really dawn on me at first,

36:12but later on it did. And I was very fortunate that the hijackers decided not to born it board any planes in Kansas City. Yeah, that's, that's a big factor. Tell me about your journey. How did the morning start? You got out on a plane, got up in the air. What happens from that point on that, that morning 25 years ago for you? Yeah, well, I was traveling for work and I had a two leg trip from Kansas City to Bakersfield, California by way of Salt Lake City. And the flight to Salt Lake City was completely uneventful, nothing out of the ordinary. We landed in Salt Lake City and as we were getting off the plane, you know, there was a lot of chatter about somebody had flown a plane into one of the twin towers in New York. And of course, all the TV monitors in the Salt Lake City airport were showing it. And again, because I'm not too bright, it didn't dawn on me till much later that we weren't going to be in Bakersfield.

37:14That wasn't going to happen, but we spent, we spent most of the morning sitting in a restaurant in Salt Lake City airport watching the twin towers burn and then collapse. That was when it started dawn on me that my trip that I had planned was not going to happen. And we ended up spending several days in the Salt Lake City area, had to get a hotel room in Park City, Utah, which is a ski resort town because Salt Lake City hotels were completely sold out as were all the rental cars. And so it just turned into a week of complete mayhem in terms of my schedule and what I was hoping to do. So you're probably juggling this infinite sadness, the shock of it all, because it didn't seem real. It still doesn't in a way. And then you got the practicality of what happens next? When can we do things again, let alone get in the skies again and be on an airplane? Exactly. We're dealing with this surreal event and the sadness of it and the enormity

38:23of it. And at the same time, we're scrambling around. I was traveling with a colleague. We're scrambling around trying to find a rental car, trying to find a hotel room, trying to figure out where we're going to eat that night. And it was just so weird to be doing all those things at the same time. Yeah, it would have had to. What were the subsequent days like then in terms of, I mean, again, the world was grounded. I don't think there was a plane in the sky. Everyone's like, well, who can go where? How are you know, you've followed? How are these, uh, you know, how's Major League Baseball going to finish their season again to even teams in the air again? Nobody knew anything about when things would start up again. Everything was in a complete uproar. And so I was supposed to go from Baker's Field then on to Los Angeles and then on to a foreign city and work on a project overseas in East Asia.

39:24And my colleagues who we had an Australian branch at the time, where I was working and they kept calling me saying, when are you going to get here? I was like, I'm not going to get this. There are no international flights. It's not going to happen. And it was, it was really weird because they, they didn't even less than I grasped the enormity of it. They grasped it even less that there were no international flights in and out of the US. And that trip just wasn't going to happen. Before you go, David, is it, is it safe to grasp that we, it's very politically fraught right now. There's even tension. You're well aware of it that I never thought I'd see between Canada and the United States, let alone, you know, the Republicans and the Democrats. We came off a really divided election when I was living there between George W Bush and Al Gore. And the second that, that second plane hit that all went stoop like just stopped for what it felt like months on end. There was no partisan politics. There was no name calling no finger pointing, no nothing. It's like, what are

40:27we going to do? How are we going to get back on our feet and how will we obviously make sure this doesn't happen again? But I, I wonder in that, in that retrospective perspective, David, whether you were like, you look back and you're like, you're stunned that people came together as much as they did. Or is that just the human condition that everybody saw the tragedy for what it was? And everybody said, we got, we got more important things to do and caring about other people is pretty, I think it's pretty inherent human quality at the, it certainly is a Western world quality. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And you know, it was, you know, if you can say there was an upside 9-11, which is very hard to say, it was that partisan politics got set aside for a moment and we really didn't come together as a country. And, you know, that was really, I think the first time that people in this country really started to appreciate first responders, the guys who were running into the towers instead of running out. And, and you know, that is something that we have, I think,

41:28kept with us. So I'm grateful for that. But yeah, to set up partisan politics aside for a brief moment and really come together as a country was if there is an upside 9-11, that was it. That was it. David, thanks for sharing your reflections. Good to hear your voice again. And thanks for being on our show. My pleasure. Good to talk to you, Greg. David, Grystal joining us from the Kansas City area. And again, you could imagine forget the idea of you're waiting in in, in, we've all sat around airports and we've all sat and waited for our plane and it's delayed. Then it gets canceled. Could be weather related. Could be something else. We've all sat on the tarmac. When are we taking off? When are, when do we get to taxi in? But then you get this kind of explanation. We wouldn't live in an instantaneous, oh, I can find out by three, you know, keystrokes on my phone back then. We didn't have that world 25 years ago.