Roland Wilson and Millicent Cox

00:01 My name is Millicent Cox. I am age 46 today. And today is May 27th, and we are at the Grand Central Terminal New York City and I am interviewing my brother Roland.

00:19 Hi, Roland, Wilson.

00:21 I am aged 41.

00:25 Today

00:27 Today is May 27th.

00:30 2007

00:33 We are at the Grand Central Station in New York.

00:37 And I'm going to be responding to questions for my sister Millicent.

00:44 So rolling tell me about the house September 11th that morning 2001. How did that begin for you?

00:53 Begin

00:56 Quite ordinary

00:58 Got on the train.

01:01 Coming into Hoboken

01:04 It was a beautiful day.

01:06 Sky was blue not a cloud in the sky and I have a choice. I usually take the PATH train in or take the ferry across so I'd like to take the ferry.

01:18 And

01:22 Do you look up at the Trade Centers, you know on the ferry and you know, I do a lot of Photography and I've taken probably hundreds of pictures of the Trade Center.

01:33 Because it was a such a difficult building to photograph.

01:38 And I don't think my dad took any pictures and I have my camera with me.

01:44 But I took some just the Friday before.

01:47 The event

01:49 I came across and I kind of gathered around the park.

01:54 And I got off the ferry in my run a park. I think that's when the first.

02:01 Impact the first plane hit

02:04 And did you hear it from where you were. Didn't hear it at the time? I thought it was a lot of Street noise from traffic and you planes fly over the city quite often. So I really didn't pay attention to the sound.

02:22 And then you started to hear some people screaming.

02:26 And usually I'm walking to the Concourse right about that time, but because I was just walking around the park. I was in no rush to get into my office. I didn't.

02:36 I didn't take my usual route.

02:40 So I know I did not hear anything ironically.

02:51 You watch the situation going on for

02:56 And the flame starting to burn through the building and I just walked around the location.

03:05 And then I left I kind of want more downtown walking away.

03:11 And when I get that, that's one of the second plane hit.

03:15 The other Tower

03:18 And I just heard somebody scream we're under attack.

03:22 Is it getting my back was turned to the Tower and I brought me back and I came back toward the blue the location.

03:31 To where I was at the world financial center.

03:35 Which is up there was a bridge that connected World Financial Center to I get to the Tower number one in that area. No standing under that bridge.

03:46 For quite a while.

03:49 And the crowd their people

03:55 And we would see.

03:59 The police helicopter. I remember to circling.

04:02 Around the top of the towers

04:07 And the people on the ground tears crying and you hear things falling and hitting the impact in the ground.

04:16 And people wonder why the helicopter was at least trying to pick somebody up off of the roof or anything. Apparently they were people up on the roof or whatever.

04:27 And then you started to see people jump.

04:31 And we would call out the people. I was that I couldn't hear us and leave it there. Could I guess their choice was murdered or three jump?

04:41 And I will jump out and you.

04:44 See him fall and land, you know somebody to Concourse or around there tomorrow after another.

04:52 Did you find yourself fixed in one position? Sometimes that happens with PT once I got to where I was?

05:05 I was pretty much at that area.

05:11 I just standing.

05:13 And I'm a locksmith emergency Personnel. I come on the scene. Nobody was actually on right there on the I guess that's the West Side Highway at that location.

05:26 And stay there quite a while.

05:32 And more people jumped

05:34 And I you see something people will fire department people coming into the building and finally some trucks Camp ever.

05:42 And

05:45 Fire department people told us to move go around the corner.

05:51 Can we comply?

05:55 End.

05:57 Five minutes later the

06:00 First tower started to come and come down.

06:07 And the debris cloud

06:11 Yeah, I just remembered some developing around the corner of world financial center part of it at hit the area where I was standing just a few minutes ago.

06:23 If you ever see any pictures of World Finance in the fact, I have some on my website.

06:28 You'll see the area damage and that's right exactly where I was a probably had. I not moved we wouldn't be talkin today.

06:36 And we just up.

06:40 Personal people running toward me and I just

06:44 And I say no this can't be happening and I didn't move out then in the middle of the street.

06:51 People running past me running past me.

06:54 And then the debris Cloud hit me.

06:59 And that's when I started to move.

07:03 And very suddenly became pitch black and a blot out the sun. You couldn't see anything.

07:12 And I went into an apartment Lobby and the Battery Park City and stay there for a while.

07:24 Until I got the

07:26 Go to crowd of people were some women were hysterical crying and screaming.

07:33 And just being packed in like that kind of got me a little.

07:38 I don't like crowds never did I never liked crowds?

07:43 So

07:47 I started to get out and that's why I guess one of the second tower collapsed.

07:55 And it was really totally darkness and it was real is absolutely quiet.

08:01 The sirens that you had her before pretty much were gone.

08:06 And I was walking through Battery Park. I was trying to get to the ferry terminal.

08:11 Subway near South Street Seaport

08:14 Cuz I figured going toward the world financial center was a disaster. They had a that's where that I used to get off of the fair.

08:21 And

08:26 There

08:28 Cuz I'm going to the Battery Park that is on the track at the track lights, but the lights that come on cuz I guess they're sensitive to the sun of all of the

08:41 And the smoke in the ass and everything you're inhaling and I'm wheezing in and threw out that there was other forget there was this guy who walked past me crossing my path for Battery Park with the ash falling like snow.

08:57 He was smoking a cigarette.

09:01 Surrounded by smoke and Ash in the guy was just puffing away and I walked past him. I said this can't be real.

09:11 At what point?

09:14 Did it really sink into you the gravity of the situation you were motionless for a while before the buildings came down and then your hearing people scream.

09:31 Well, I mean when you so people jump when I know it was pretty serious, but I never imagined of the buildings would collapse of that wasn't in my thinking. That's probably why I was where I was and what I would always look at these huge buildings and kind of Marvel at how well do they stand up in any event? Why doesn't the wind just knocked them over so whatever much for a tall buildings of being in there and haven't been in the trade to sooner many times, so work-related and other things, you know, the building does move you feel its way. I'm in a storm or something like that. And if you go to the men's room, you'll see the water sloshing about the toilet cuz it Doesn't move like a 5 degree tilt on either side of that so it doesn't collapse.

10:23 So they always made me nervous that any of that but I never thought I would actually come down.

10:28 But when you saw people jumping out that that was their choice.

10:33 Emily the last choice of the take control of their lives in the last seconds

10:38 That's why I know that's what's really up.

10:43 Really intense, so

10:48 Here walking to the ass. I got to the ferry terminal.

10:53 And it was just a mob of people there and they're taking people, Staten Island.

10:59 And you really can't even get on everyone's just try to evacuate lower Manhattan.

11:05 Subway is closed nothing and I was just covering their stomach like a ghost.

11:12 From top to bottom and

11:17 I tried to let me try to walk home to New Jersey. I lived in Teaneck, New Jersey at the time which it is.

11:27 Little bit Northwest of lower Manhattan cross the George Washington Bridge

11:35 Can decide to walk up the east side? I figured it's going to be more tax. They going to go for a big building. So these side has no big buildings.

11:45 And I remember walking up to Chinatown in there. I am totally covered with Ash.

11:52 And you're walking through there.

11:56 And the people in Chinatown

11:59 Acting as if nothing happened, they were going about their business. So nobody was even looking up they were just selling their usual wears.

12:10 You know speaking Chinese doing whatever they were doing as if nothing happened and I walk through there if you know still told I didn't even brush the ass off of me are in your same situation, perhaps I mean, I heard it a thousand people there thousand people just you just totally dazed and you walk out of that and some of them look at me like that what's wrong with him? And I look up obviously you see the big smoke cloud. What's wrong with me?

12:41 But I got a job at 34th Street or so.

12:46 And I realized just walking to you. So I was just Cody way out of my way. So let me try to

12:53 Get back over to the west side and maybe walk across Walk off the Earth.

12:58 Catch a bus or something, but there no buses running.

13:02 And I got over by the Cross Bronx Expressway and I was told to shut down. My truck box gives me the west side highway going north.

13:12 And I ended up putting up with another man in my situation and I also was down there and

13:19 Covered with the ashes well, and we're kind of walking together cuz it's like a little soul mates there, you know.

13:30 And I were walking along the West Side Highway.

13:35 And finally, this is a cup and a half way up around 96 97th Street.

13:43 Taxi driver was able to somehow get on the highway and it says you guys want to ride I'm not going to charge it. So we got it in.

13:51 And that

13:54 Got up to the summer near the George Washington Bridge and had to let us out because all the traffic was stopped.

14:02 And go to the bridge in a fig. Okay, I can walk on walk across and try to get in touch with my wife.

14:09 My daughter if you went to a private school not far from the George Washington Bridge before it lays on me. If I can get there then, you know, I can get picked up from there.

14:20 There are men with shotguns who would shoot you. If you try to cross the bridge. They wouldn't let you cross over thousands of people trying to get out of the city.

14:30 And we were just stuck there.

14:33 At the Port Authority at 175th Street and Assembly Street across of day. It was by time. You got to that point probably 1 or 2 p.m.

14:54 I really lost all track of time.

14:58 And

15:00 I still haven't clean the Ash off of myself.

15:04 Had anybody else that you could see other people?

15:09 I guess the sense to say well, who knows what's in this Ashton? I can clean it off my body, but I will still pretty much covered whatever came off and make him off because I was walking it wasn't cuz I got to myself down.

15:24 I hadn't thought of it, you know and

15:31 I guess we were stuck there for about an hour and I was thousands of people and

15:38 I got the Port Authority, there is some buses and pick people up to get on the bus. We got on the bus.

15:46 I took us to the toll plaza of the gwb to get out.

15:51 And you're on your own from there?

15:54 So what I'm saying, I was able to get a cell phone call to my wife Amy.

16:02 And told her to pick me up at the school when my daughter went to school at in the squad already closed and I sent the kids home. So I walked there and she pick me up.

16:16 And the

16:20 When I got home.

16:23 I want to get a basement in.

16:25 Take off those clothes.

16:29 And

16:31 Threw them in the basement. I never wore those clothes again.

16:34 And I took a shower.

16:37 So when I sold the house, I left the clothes in the basement in the same bag that which was going to let a year-and-a-half later.

16:44 I can never put them in the garbage garbage, but I left them.

16:51 And I was thinking I was debating whether or not to take the clothes.

16:57 But I felt like I needed to I want to kind of clothes that.

17:07 I remember when they built the towers.

17:10 And that it would talk about thinking to build the tallest buildings in the world. I need show me and I was a little maybe about 5 years old and both of them at 72 71 72, right?

17:22 So and he was talking about and I said, well, that's cool. So when this gets billed going to go there and go to the top and see the city and things.

17:31 So I felt this kind of connection to it from a little boy.

17:36 And I was gone and I spent hours photographing it.

17:42 Cuz it was snow the model. Kind of like a 2001 the movie, you know that just stood there and no matter what you did was difficult to photograph until I finally got a couple of good shots of it.

17:54 And I still haven't gone through all the pictures I've taken of it surprisingly. It's probably about three or four hundred. I still haven't looked at.

18:04 But do you know when your photo nut take lots of pictures?

18:10 So then I was going to do something in a garbage. I'll take a look at that and

18:18 And I can imagine how many people may have perished on that day. I'd say the only good thing about the time you attack him so early that a lot of people hadn't come into work yet.

18:31 And also that they impacted the building relatively high up if they are lower than a lot of people would have been able to get out.

18:41 But you'll is about for the 20,000 people on the timers.

18:52 Did that event in any way affect your

18:56 Outlook on life give de politics your value set.

19:04 Sense of security

19:08 I would say probably defective my sense of security. Yeah.

19:13 My politics are always pretty extreme on any level.

19:22 And I think the world that wasn't president cuz he would probably be no Middle East at this point. Because I Piccoli hate Islamic people.

19:33 I mean I would have nuked Israel along with it. So it's going to be nothing to fight over.

19:44 It's

19:47 And I always try to think of every day you wake up is a good day.

19:52 And I got that from my musician days when they know something I can hang out with with turn up there for whatever reason so.

20:03 You know, I like that philosophy still kept me come and going.

20:10 Difficult how you know, I have my own business at that time so that we can teach a financial industry. So we were all shut down.

20:19 I was majoring back there.

20:21 But then I still paid all my workers and everything.

20:31 Yeah, maybe in effect mean other ways that I still have yet to quite realize.

20:38 About the day. I need visions that just come back or perhaps a sound or something else my trigger today I go into a modded panic mode.

20:55 I will.

20:58 I thought I really thought they close airspace over the city permanently, but they don't you'll see you'll see big planes flying right of the city again now.

21:10 Just because I guess it's so much limited airspace at the temporary to go by that that still bothers me.

21:22 I don't dream about it.

21:25 I don't know.

21:28 But I do find myself occasionally when I wanted to go through some of my photos of the World Trade Center in the in the Promenade area and Lisa conscious there and things I would sitting in.

21:42 I found myself going through those things too. Kind of remember what it was like I wish they didn't clean up the site.

21:53 Set the duration of an Lester. I think that would have been a more fitting Memorial.

22:00 So what pink people capable of if you clean it up and put a spanking of tower there then and one will really forget what it was all about. But I had they left the original to breathe air.

22:13 Then

22:16 Some people would never forget that.

22:22 What would be your

22:25 Response to

22:29 A teens a teenager's concept and angry teenagers concept that this event was not significant at all.

22:40 And that it did nothing more than

22:44 Lower the world's population

22:50 If you look at it in the macro View.

22:53 As to what happens in the world

22:57 Real there wasn't significant.

23:02 If you try to compare this to

23:07 Rwanda

23:11 This is nothing.

23:13 The response turn out to be

23:17 Rather devastating but

23:19 Name of the event itself

23:23 I mean look at a country that I had nearly 300 million people in the loss of 3000. We lose that everyday in car accidents.

23:35 Her response

23:39 Was far more devastating then the results of the attack.

23:46 So why you think teenager has?

23:51 A larger view of the world saying well that's insignificant. Then they may have a point. It's just saying it just to say well anybody's death is insignificant because I'm the center of the world 7th, and that's another issue that you have to deal with.

24:07 It's my sense that it was the latter that caused him to say that.

24:16 I actually wrote about this.

24:20 And the how and proportionality compared to all the other hardships and atrocities across the globe this was this was nothing.

24:34 And United States usually responds without sides matter to any event and we did so in World War II with the bombing of

24:43 Pearl Harbor

24:46 And we killed some 10 million Japanese in response to 3000 US debt, so

24:52 We always will respond for more dramatically to the attack which may or may not be the right thing to do.

25:02 And that's I think after was all done. I I knew this was the end result is we're going to go out and kill a lot of people whether it made sense what they were the ones directly related to it or not.

25:15 Cuz I just a history of the country.

25:19 And that's exactly what we did.

25:27 When the anniversaries come around is there.

25:34 Any ritual that you do or do you

25:37 Try to forget it.

25:42 I don't do anything by Jimmy try to avoid it.

25:48 If you lost the classmate and I don't remember him about hurricane.

25:57 Give me the windows on the world as a manager there.

26:00 Is the same grade as you graduated the same year you did Dwight Morrow.

26:05 Yes.

26:07 And remember his name.

26:11 And there was another gentleman it was an acquaintance of ours and his wife is Japanese and our kids are friends and I also

26:20 He perished in that attack hard.

26:23 You know what if I run into people that I happen to say and we may talk about it. But to me you find a people don't talk, but people have been through it usual after but talk about it and soon as we people out in the Heartland sold on TV. They're the most aggressive. I guess you just have the propaganda at 9:11 to further their names.

26:46 You know that day for me.

26:51 Was quite a scary one and it's another piece of evidence in my mind as we get older you and I how

27:02 That sibling connection seems to be more pronounced I by time I got the news in and Windsor Connecticut. I think it was just shy of 10 in the morning. So the planes hit hit.

27:21 The building's I think we were down or wonderful. And so when that information was passed on it was just before my first class was due to start.

27:35 I instantly knew and felt somehow that you were affected even though I never knew.

27:43 Where in New York you worked? I never had any idea but when it went when I got that information, I just I went into Panic do they like many of the teachers who work in the classroom at that time? We gathered in the library where in the media center where they had the TV's going and then seeing the images that were being portrayed on the news at that time, and I was very very upset and I was trying to reach you couldn't reach you.

28:15 Try to get ahold of Amy and she hadn't heard from you at that point. And so I was quite upset I had to miss that first class because I was just so upset.

28:34 And I remember.

28:37 That in this school of near 1100 children 6th 7th and 8th grade.

28:44 The decision was made to not say a word about this event to any of the students and as the day went on parents begin to show up at the school and take the children home.

29:01 And all of the kids had some idea that something was wrong, but nobody would say anything and later during the school year. It came out in particular with the 8th graders that I work with that they were upset that no one told them that their world was change it and I remember in the recent.

29:27 Situation with the Virginia Tech students. It was sort of similar in that those kids didn't have information the way they they should have had information and when I think about the time span,

29:42 Those college students now where those middle school students Windsor person who was at Virginia Tech. She was not hurt, but then she came home for the rest of the semester.

30:10 Good old 911

30:17 West Olympic better targets

30:20 What would have been a better Target and your mind?

30:24 I guess if their goal is to Cripple America.

30:29 Making a cripple New York by blowing up the tunnels.

30:34 Long at the bridge

30:39 They didn't have to do it.

30:41 Mother Day

30:45 But Americans also need to realize that we provoke people.

30:51 I think that's the hardest lesson that we've yet to learn. I think it is a people are finally starting to

30:58 Get that message, but

31:01 Most part a lot of Americans still haven't figured that out.

31:10 Electron explain the people that Pearl Harbor that the Japanese didn't attack us for no reason. We are blockading.

31:19 Reply getting oil shipments to Japan

31:25 Basically an act of War

31:28 So

31:30 I guess American is going to get out of side of its propaganda sometimes.

31:37 Am I not there? We do things other folks, but they don't necessarily like

31:42 And you kind of know me as a

31:45 Relatively conservative

31:49 Political

31:51 Yes, I would say conservative is it?

31:58 I like the part where I called Ronald Reagan a liberal.

32:04 I wouldn't vote for the man.

32:07 But you didn't vote for

32:12 No, but yeah, we we provoke people.

32:16 We don't need to have 170 military bases around the world.

32:22 And everybody else's country Junior military here, do you?

32:27 That's true cuz they're everywhere else.

32:31 And everybody else's business, so I rather see them along the Mexican border someplace and Canadian border.

32:39 Then everywhere else.

32:43 But the

32:46 Yeah, 911 89.14 I guess the pic the day is a joke.

32:54 Can I call you a voicemail. Call 911?

32:58 Hours are 11.

33:01 September

33:04 So

33:07 Will you at any time nervous or apprehensive about?

33:13 Mass transit flying trains buses after the event

33:19 I'm flown once after the event I went to Tokyo.

33:28 And I was maybe six seven months after having fun sense.

33:34 I don't think I'm a prince.

33:37 About time

33:40 I'm apprehensive around the wrong people.

33:45 Which I wasn't before.

33:48 You know, I have I just feel more nervous.

33:53 And it's kind of sad because I had any Pakistani employee.

33:58 Wants and he was a very good man, and we often talked about religions and differences and things like that is a very conservative muscle and it would go and take time off during the day to go do a present. I have no problem with that.

34:13 And he gave me a copy of the Koran and we would talk about the

34:18 How Muslims View Christian Leonel review Islam and Judaism so is always a nice open conversation and he's one of the few people I really want to find after the tax.

34:35 Here is thoughts thoughts, and I've been able unable to locate him.

34:44 But yeah, that's the only time I found myself apprehensive and I think if I got a chance to sit down and talk with him, maybe it would help that.

34:54 I recall.

34:56 If you recall a 2001 that was the the year on Julia die and

35:06 It was September 10th at about 11:50 p.m. That I had gone online to book tickets to fly out to San Francisco to see her Cheryl and I and then of course the very next day these.

35:23 It happened and I recall having conversations with a Julia and she was concerned for me saying, you know, I'll understand if you don't come and I maintained Isis know until you I'm coming. I am not going to let this keep me from visiting you Cheryl and I did go out and it was the next month because the tickets were purchased for the Columbus Day weekend. And so I took that long weekend in and we went out and I was determined not to be frightened about that. I was not going to have that event. Keep me from what may have been and it actually was the last visit.

36:12 That I had with her before she before she died. And I know a lot of my colleagues when they found that I was getting on a plane going anywhere. They said oh, how could you do that? I'm going I'm going perpetrators who sells argon so

36:31 Then I can do the same thing twice and certainly not a month later. I didn't I didn't think that.

36:42 Typical Palestinian suicide truck bombs in the city more than airplanes.

36:51 That's why I decided of it. Obviously a Muslim people got me nervous for a while, but I'm better about that now.

37:05 Hopefully there will be no more September 11th.

37:09 But that's going to be something.

37:15 But I'm sure we just have to be vigilant and open.

37:21 To making things better wear as you said before we are not provoking.

37:31 People's anger. Well, I wouldn't be the American way.

37:37 Where the empire?

37:42 Or Rome on its decline.

37:45 Home Depot

37:49 Thank God that.

37:52 And all the wonderful architecture left in the world.

38:03 We're nearing the end of our nice little chat here.

38:07 Or anything are kind moderators would like to ask.

38:11 I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what it was like when you got home that day.

38:17 I was relieved I remember very little about what happened when I get home.

38:26 I I was putting um, I think the TV was on.

38:32 When the phone did ring usually it was caused from Japan for my wife's family and guess you're asking. Did you find rolling?

38:43 I cuz I was pretty well, I guess I knew that I was working in in the area now in Wall Street area.

38:51 Yeah, the TV was just I think on 24/7 and we even had the Japanese television which was kind of mirroring the US colors. That's so I guess the one thing that have a brass made worldwide just put everything just kind of stopped and covered, New York.

39:11 And I guess that's what I kind of realized. I had an idea feel like the American influence worldwide, but

39:18 When you see that the house sympathetic.

39:23 The world was to the event.

39:26 Is it flipping to the cable channels and seeing far news was pretty pretty impressive.

39:33 I'm Sandra squatted on that.

39:41 And my daughter was

39:46 I was really concerned about her I think in her her reaction would be towards the event. She was my oldest daughter's on that turning 17 now, but then she was what 11

39:59 Just a little bit turn down past 11.

40:05 And this is where kids begin to form their views on people in the prejudices start to set in the things. So I was a little bit concerned about that as to how she would encounter and deal with you and other people and I pretty much run for good or bad or keeping the bubbles went to a Japanese private school start in Japanese language. So she was kind of in a bubble away from General American society. So

40:36 Now this would be a major intrusion into that.

40:41 I wondered if

40:44 Now she would be and to this day. I still don't know how she really really has internalized it but I think a lot of things negatively were internalized and Insider, but I think manifest itself as years later.

41:01 Did you collect did you notice anything if you'd like she became aggressive rather so and

41:11 And force me that was used during the divorce proceedings.

41:17 But it I think it had to do with

41:21 Percent of the world isn't nice The World Isn't kind and really horrific things happen to people and the fact that her father lived through one-way traffic things and coming home and going to pick me up. She was in the car. So there I was with all the dust on me still and I'm getting in the car so

41:45 You know, she saw some pretty close up that you know what can happen in that the real it was just too and I didn't really get into that. I never got into this detail with her as to where I was.

41:58 And all that, I just got in the car and I didn't say anything.

42:03 I remember opening the window and

42:06 I'm a dust blowing off location to the wind in the car is that we drove home, but the

42:12 Yeah, I didn't talk to her that much about it.

42:16 Now the John Wayne strong silent type kind of thing.

42:21 I wasn't all that strong. I just didn't know what to say.

42:28 Thank you for coming. Thank you.