It was a normal Tuesday in the office with the staff working to get the Newsgram ready to print. I walked further into the building and found several people clustered in front of the television screen. A plane had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 8:46 a.m.

At first it wasn’t known if the plane was a small private aircraft or something larger. It was assumed to be some kind of terrible accident. Then the second plane struck the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. As cameras captured the impact, the TV announcers realized this was a coordinated attack. It was Sept....