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WILKES-BARRE — Eighteen years ago today, Linda Armstrong got off a bus in Battery Park in Manhattan and saw an airplane fly over her head.
Armstrong, the owner of Dress for Success on East Market Street, said from that moment on, her life was changed.
The airplane Armstrong saw was piloted by terrorists and it struck one of the World Trade Center twin towers — a second plane would hit the other tower minutes later.
Unknown to Armstrong at the time, another plane struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and another was forced to crash in a field near Pittsburgh.
The visual memories are graphic and Armstrong won’t — can’t — ever forget.
“I saw people in the towers holding hands and jumping out to their death,” Armstrong told me in 2011 on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack. “I can’t imagine what it was like for them. When you see that, you realize how short and how precious life is.”
Those images, those memories, are why Armstrong gave up her career and followed her dream back home to open Dress for Success, providing clothes and counseling for women transitioning back into the workforce.
But every time Sept. 11 rolls around, Armstrong gets a little apprehensive. After all, in the years since 2001, Armstrong has had a few, shall we say, adverse experiences when the anniversary arrives.
For instance, she has seen her home in West Pittston damaged severely by a flood. She has had the ceiling of her business collapse from a water leak from a floor above — damaging her store and ruining much of her inventory. She has run out of her former location on South Street when she felt the tremors of a slight earthquake shake her building and her up.
In fact, every time Armstrong hears a loud noise or smells something afoul, her mind returns to Sept. 11, 2001, and those sights and sounds and smells that followed the terrorist attack.
And be sure that it’s not just Armstrong that has these moments. Most everybody who was near any of the attacks on that fateful day still cope with the same feelings and fears.
“Just about every day noises startle me,” Armstrong told me. “And when I smell something burning. Post trauma stress disorder is a pretty savage thing. It comes out of nowhere.”
Back in 2011, Armstrong told me she and several co-workers left their building and started walking out of the city. They were on the Brooklyn Bridge covered in ash.
“Everybody looked like statues,” she said. “After something like 9/11, you wake up and realize there is a higher purpose. You realize everything you have could all be gone in a second. It makes you realize how temporary everything is.”
Armstrong said 9/11 was a life-defining moment for her. She lives her life “out loud” and things that used to bother her don’t so much anymore.
“After two 110-story buildings get dropped on your head, nothing really upsets you,” she said in 2011. “People — all people — are more important to me now.”
Armstrong said she will spend today, doing what she has done since the attacks — dedicating the day to the service to others and run her Dress for Success organization.
“I continue to turn my pain into a positive,” she said.
And Armstrong said she remains bothered by something else.
“I’m saddened after 18 years that a whole group of people are still being blamed for the actions of a few radical terrorists,” she said.
Armstrong said she has been back to Manhattan and she has visited the National September 11 Memorial and she has walked in the footprints of where the Twin Towers once stood.
Armstrong said her friendships keep her strong. She said she will never forget that day — she really can’t.
Like she said, getting off that bus in Battery Park and seeing a low-flying jet over her head is an image that won’t go away.
Neither will the sounds or the smells or the images of ash-covered frightened people running from “ground zero.”
And she will be at her store, doing all she can to make life better for her clients.
Armstrong said 9/11 changed her life for the better.
Recently, Armstrong said this about her work:
“We don’t just provide clothing, we help to change lives.”
