25 years later, former Gov. Gilmore remembers leading a Commonwealth under attack
(WSET) — Twenty-five years later, James Gilmore can still picture the morning.
He was getting dressed inside the Governor’s Mansion in Richmond, tying his tie as what appeared to be another routine September morning unfolded.
Then came the news: A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.
"I finished getting my tie on and then went across the street to the governor's office, which is in the Capitol building," Gov. Gilmore said.
At first, Gilmore thought it was an accident. Then, a second plane struck.
The morning of September 11, 2001, was no longer routine, and before the day was over, Virginia would become one of two states directly attacked.
“I was not panicked. I just had to do my job as the governor of Virginia, and one of the two states that was under attack that day,” Gilmore recalled in an interview with ABC13's Rachel Branning.
‘We didn’t know what was going on’
Gilmore had been in New York City just one day earlier. He had even considered staying another night after inclement weather.
"I was there with Mark Early, helping him campaign for governor by meeting people in New York City. Actually, we rang the bell at the American Stock Exchange, which is right across the street from the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center," the former governor said. "That night, there was a heavy rain in New York, and it looked like we were gonna have to spend the night in downtown Manhattan. So, we began to move down that way to take a hotel room, when the weather let up."
After delays, Gilmore ultimately made his way back to Virginia.
That decision meant he was at the Governor’s Mansion when the attacks began.
As the first reports came in, Gilmore said uncertainty quickly became one of the defining emotions of the day.
The real thing I would communicate to you was the uncertainty of the situation,” Gilmore said. “We didn’t know what was going on. We didn’t know the nature of the attack. We didn’t know what additional things were going to happen.”
Then came another devastating blow. The Pentagon was hit.
American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., killing all 53 passengers and six crew members aboard. The ensuing crash and fire also killed 125 military and civilian personnel on the ground.
For Virginia, the attacks were no longer something happening somewhere else. They were happening at home.
A governor forced to lead through the unimaginable
Gilmore immediately put the Virginia National Guard on alert.
But beyond mobilizing resources, the governor faced another enormous responsibility: helping Virginians navigate a day unlike anything the country had experienced before.
People were watching their televisions, waiting for information and wondering what would happen next.
The people of Virginia were looking to their governor for some security, for some sense of direction, for some sense of what needed to be done,” Gilmore said. “Now, fortunately I was in an immediate position to do exactly that. I was calm and in a position to handle it because of the experience that I had had both in politics and at the national level."
For Gilmore, supporting the families of those killed and those injured at the Pentagon quickly became a priority.
"Being as supportive as we could be to the local responders who were actually fighting the fire, and picking up the people who were being hospitalized in Arlington," he said.
He said leading Virginia through the devastation was a responsibility he never expected to have, but one he was honored to carry.
The warnings that came before 9/11
Gilmore's connection to the events of September 11 began years before the attacks.
As governor, he chaired a congressional panel examining how the United States could prevent, prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. The panel would later become known as the Gilmore Commission.
Its 2000 report warned that the United States lacked a coherent national strategy for combating terrorism.
The commission did not predict the September 11 attacks, but Gilmore said its members warned that a major terrorist attack was eventually likely.
We warned that the chance of some kind of conventional attack, major terrorist attack was inevitable,” Gilmore said. “And frankly, nobody really paid much attention to our reports, honestly.”
The questions raised by the commission would later become part of the broader national conversation surrounding the 9/11 investigation.
The official investigation ultimately identified failures involving imagination, policy, capabilities and management before the attacks.
For Gilmore, the tragedy underscored just how dramatically the country's approach to national security would change.
“Nowhere in the country was there a sense of emergency or urgency,” he said. “And the result of this attack is exactly that. Frankly, the nation has been permanently and completely transformed as a result of the attack.”
A different America
The changes that followed September 11 reshaped everyday life for Americans.
Security at airports was transformed. The Transportation Security Administration was created.
National security became a defining issue in American politics and public life.
Gilmore believes those measures were necessary to protect the country, but he also believes they came with a cost.
He argues that Americans today live with more restrictions on their freedom than they did before the attacks.
Before the attack, we were freer people than we are today," Gilmore said.
For him, the contrast is stark.
"We knew there'd be an attack, but the World Trade Center was already attacked once previous to this, and it was stopped, so we all took confidence in ourselves that we could go on living as free people. The 9/11 attack told us that we would not," he said.
September 10, 2001, and the America that existed the day before the attacks now feel like a different era.
"Today, you can't go into a major public building anywhere in the urban United States without checking in at a security desk. You have to present your identification. You have to explain your business. That is a less free society," Gilmore said. "I remember very well, we all do, a day when you just went about your business and you went anywhere that you wanted to. You went into buildings and went up elevators and didn't think about it."
Twenty-five years later, Gilmore remembers the uncertainty, the fear and the responsibility of that morning, and the lives forever changed.
We should remember the people that we knew, or the people that we became aware of, who were killed on that day," he said. "We have to remember that there are people in this world that don't agree with America or any of our friends and allies, and want to bring us down."
The day began with a governor tying his tie for another ordinary morning. It ended with him leading a Commonwealth under attack.
And, Gilmore says, neither Virginia nor the United States would ever be the same.
"I believe living not in fear requires courage, education, citizenship and resolution to be the kind of people that we are, and that is probably the ultimate lesson of 9/11," Gilmore said.