Saipan businessman recalls Ground Zero 25 years after 9/11

As the CNMI commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks last week, Saipan businessman Andrew Ashburn remembered watching the first plane strike the World Trade Center—and returning to Ground Zero shortly afterward to help restore communications for first responders.

Ashburn, owner of A-Plus Consulting on Saipan, was working as a project manager for Nextel Communications in New York City when the attacks occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. Raised in New York, Ashburn said his work that morning took him to the roof of a roughly 30-story building in Manhattan, where he was checking areas with poor cellular coverage.

From about 44 blocks away, he noticed an aircraft flying unusually low.

“As I was on top of that building, I saw the first plane come,” Ashburn recalled. “I just started taking pictures of this plane that looked like it was flying really low.”

Ashburn said he photographed the first plane striking the World Trade Center and later witnessed the second attack. He eventually made his way out of the city.

But his involvement did not end there.

About a day later, Ashburn said he was called back and assigned to help establish temporary cellular communications after the collapse of the North Tower disrupted service.

“So I went down there with a crew down to Ground Zero to set up cell sites on wheels to make sure that the first responders could have some type of communication as they're doing the rescue,” he said.

Ashburn described his role as small compared with those of the firefighters, police officers, emergency personnel, and other responders working amid the devastation.

“My participation was very little of just assisting, getting some comms up for the rescuers,” he said. “And it was a horrific sight. We saw things that the human body and human brain should never see.”

Ashburn said he worked 16-hour shifts and struggled to sleep afterward because the images he witnessed during the day kept replaying in his mind.

He also said he lost what he estimates were seven or eight friends in the attacks and later developed a respiratory problem that he attributes to his time working around Ground Zero.

“Other than the emotional side effects that I obviously had that still affects me to this day because I get emotional just talking about it,” Ashburn said. “But I've lost, I think, seven or eight friends in World Trade and the disaster.”

Ashburn said he still has a cough but never sought compensation for it.

Twenty-five years later and thousands of miles from New York, the memories remain difficult.

“Emotionally, every month of September, it's tough on me,” Ashburn said.

For about five years after the attacks, he said he could not bring himself to drive along Manhattan's West Side Highway near the World Trade Center site because it brought back painful memories.

Ashburn eventually left New York and lived in several countries before settling on Saipan. He stressed that the Sept. 11 attacks were not the reason he left New York, although he has come to appreciate island life.

“I do enjoy the calm, peaceful life of this beautiful island, as you can imagine,” he said.

A quarter-century after the attacks, Ashburn said younger people who were not yet born in 2001 may know Sept. 11 only as an event from history.

His message to them is less about the horror he witnessed and more about appreciating the people in their lives.

“Tomorrow is not promised for anyone. Appreciate what you have and appreciate your family and tell them that you love them every single day, because tomorrow is not promised,” he said.

That lesson remains deeply personal.

Ashburn recalled spending time the night before the attacks with a close friend who worked at Windows on the World, the restaurant in the World Trade Center's North Tower. According to Ashburn, his friend was not originally scheduled to work the following day but went in to cover a shift and died in the attack.

“It just goes to show you that you never know what can happen,” Ashburn said. “So just live life to the fullest, enjoy yourself, and enjoy your family.”

Ashburn does not hold an elaborate ceremony each Sept. 11. These days, his remembrance is quiet and personal.

“I don't really have a special commemoration. I just like to reflect,” he said.

An avid fisherman, Ashburn said he sometimes goes out to the cliffs on Saipan, reflects on what he has today, and remembers those who never made it home 25 years ago.

“I appreciate the things that I have and remember what happened, remember those souls that were lost, and just give them a moment of silence for myself,” he said.