November 19, 2025 • 29 mins
Some moments divide life into a before and after. For Terry Strada, that moment came on the morning of September 11, 2001, when her husband, Tom, called her from the North Tower after the first plane struck. In this episode of Zone 7, Sheryl McCollum speaks with Terry about the phone calls, the hours of not knowing, and the reality of raising their three children in the wake of unimaginable loss. Terry shares how she moved from grief to action by becoming the National Chair of 9/11 Families United and pushing for accountability from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their role in supporting terrorism.
Highlights:
• (0:00) Sheryl welcomes listeners to Zone 7 and introduces guest Terry Strada
• (1:00) Tom leaves for work; three children at home, one just four days old
• (2:45) The phone call from the North Tower: “A plane has hit the building... it’s horrible...”
• (4:45) Realizing the attacks were deliberate
• (6:00) Calls among Cantor Fitzgerald families in the hours of uncertainty
• (7:00) Who Tom was as a husband, father, and leader
• (9:00) How Terry became part of the lawsuit against Saudi Arabia
• (11:30) Evidence trail: funding networks and support teams inside the U.S.
• (15:30) Scotland Yard evidence and what was withheld in the U.S.
• (18:00) The federal ruling that the case may move forward
• (20:00) Saudi influence, LIV Golf, and how it affected 9/11 families• (29:00) Final reflections and closing quote, “Never Forget”
Guest Bio:
Terry Strada became a national voice for 9/11 families after losing her husband, Tom, in the North Tower on September 11, 2001. As National Chair of 9/11 Families United, she has spent more than twenty years advocating for transparency and accountability, working with lawmakers and federal agencies to expose how terrorism is financed and supported.
Enjoying Zone 7? Leave a rating and review. Your feedback helps others find the show and supports our mission to educate, engage, and inspire.
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Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award-winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnline, forensic and crime scene expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and co-author of the textbook Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. She is the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a national collaboration that advances techniques for solving cold cases and assists families and law enforcement with unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnappings.
Social Links:
• Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
• Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
• Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
• Instagram: @officialzone7podcast
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Y'all.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Tonight is a special Zone seven.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
We have the national chair for the nine to eleven
Families United with Us, Terry Strata.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Terry, welcome to Zone seven.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Thank you, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
There are so many people around nine to eleven and
what happened in this country during that time that I admire.
But I'll tell you you're one of them.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Because to me, when you think about, you know, being.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Young and cute and you get married and you know
you say them vows, it's easy. It's easy because you're
so happy and you're young, you know, till death do
his part.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, yeah, sickness and health, you got it.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Richard rapport not a problem.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
But you're not really thinking about that.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And whenever I think about you and I think about
that morning, you have three children, one.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Is four days old. Terry, mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I know it was horrible.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So just take us through your morning the morning of
nine to eleven for you.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Well, it started out like any other, you know, regular morning.
The alarm went off, Tom got up early, He's going
to go to work for half a day, come home early.
Because we had three children in the house and the
youngest was four days old. We had just brought him
home from the hospital. So Tom took a shower and
(01:35):
I went in to take care of Justin. My oldest
was seven and he wasn't feeling well, so we were
deciding on whether or not to keep him home from school.
My daughter was just four years old. It was her
first day of nursery school. And Tom came into the
nursery to see Justin and he kissed him on his
(01:58):
tiny little toes and he said, you know, I'll see
you later, baby, And I picked Justin up and I
walked down the hall with Tom, and he went down
the stairs and to the front door and opened the door,
turned around and said, I'll see you later. I'll be
home by two and I love you. And that was
the last time I saw my husband alive. But he
called you, he did. He actually called twice that morning.
(02:22):
The first phone call came in when he first got
to work, checking in on Thomas to see what decision
we had made. And I was going to keep him
home from school because he was sick. We had asthma,
and so we said goodbye, and then the phone rang again,
and I almost didn't answer it because I was busy
with the kids. But I picked it up. I thought
(02:42):
maybe he wanted to just say hi to one of them,
maybe Caitlin before she left for school. And his voice
sounded frantic on the other end. I'd never heard him
sound like this before. And he told me that a
first words out of his mouth were Terry playing hit
the building. Well that just sent you know, shivers down
(03:03):
my spine. And I'm standing in front of the television
set at this moment and there's nothing on the TV,
so I'm thinking small airplane. He said, you know it'
tar boulders fire. There's smoke, and I could hear a
lot of screaming and commotion in the background like I'd
never heard before. And Tom's been on a trading floor
for years, so I'm used to screaming, but I'm used
(03:26):
to yelling out, you know things, not screaming in a
panicked way. So he told me that he was with
a group of people that had a cell phone. We
didn't have a cell phone back then yet, and that
he was going to go to the stairwell and you know,
try to get out. So we said a few more
private things to each other, and you know, I just
(03:48):
said good luck and hung up the phone, yelled out
to my mother, who was there visiting. You know, I said, Mom, Mom,
come here, I said, you know, Tom just told me
a plane has hit his building. Then it came on
the TV. So this is you know, two or three minutes,
and I can see what the world was seeing that black,
thick smoke billowing out of the North Tower, exactly where
(04:11):
Tom was. He worked on one hundred and fourth floor
of the North Tower for Kenner Fitzgerald. So I just
started screaming to my mother. I said, nobody can get
out of that. Look how horrible that is. Nobody can
get out of that. And we made a decision right
there and then to keep the children out of the room.
Thomas and Caitlin were downstairs, so I sent my mother
(04:33):
back downstairs. I had the baby with me, and then
we just started taking turns with the kids and watching
it on television in my bedroom. So I was standing
in front of the TV when the next plane came
in and hit the South Tower. And that's when chill's
you know, just throughout my body, because you knew that
(04:56):
was deliberate, and so you now know that the first
one was as well. And you could see the size
of the airplane that hit that building, So you knew.
I knew then what was happening, and it was horrifying.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
It was horrifying, and you know, you and I don't
know each other, but I responded to nine to eleven
to the Pentagon, and when the second plane hit, like you,
it was very clear to me that this was deliberate,
that we were under attack somehow from someone. But you
watching it with a loved one in the North tower
(05:31):
on the one hundred and fourth floor, that's a whole
different ballgame. I mean we were all watching it horrified
and scared and upset. But your life was literally changing, honey,
and you knew it. I mean you said to your mama,
nobody can get out of that.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah. It just was absolutely horrifying. And to see the people,
you know, dangling out and looking for help, and that's
what I was also, help them, help them. Somebody who's
going to help these people. I ran downstairs two and
got out my rollhood decks and for people that don't
(06:12):
know what that is, that's where we used to keep
our person phone.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, you got some cans right now going home?
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Yeah, So I started calling Mike Caunter, Fitzgerald, friends, you
know people that husbands would be there also, And every
phone call was the same answer, No, I haven't heard
from him.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
No, I haven't heard from him. And then one one
wife said, yes, Danny got to call out. And I
said before or after, and they said before the plane
hit or after the plane hit. I said, okay, so
he's in the same boat thomasin he's trapped up there,
or it looks like they're trapped. I didn't know then.
(06:55):
What I know now is that all the stairwells were
gone and that the door to the rooftop was locked,
so they were trapped on those floors.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Well, Terry, tell us this, tell us about Tom. Tell
us about you and Tom. The love story.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Well, Tom was a wonderful, vibrant, very charismatic man. We
met when I was nineteen and he was twenty one
one summer at a golf club. He was an assistant
golf proback then. He hadn't started working on Wall Street yet,
and it was a a nice hot summer romance and
(07:34):
we went our separate ways, and then the next year
we met up again at the same place and he
went to work for Wall Street. At the end of
that summer, he was an outdoorsman. He loved the outdoor.
He is a fabulous fisherman. He loved a saltwater and
freshwater fish. He went hunting on an annual trip with
(07:56):
his brothers. He anything he tried to do, he excelled at.
I had a wonderful sense of humor and just a
huge heart. So we had fallen in love, and I
moved to New York City. We lived there for six
years where the Twin Tower, the North Tower, is right
there out our window. We lived right across the street
in Bownery Park City for six years before we decided
(08:19):
to start a family and we moved out to Chatham,
New Jersey, a wonderful place to raise children and still
a very easy commute into the city. So we were
happily married and had our whole future ahead of us.
You know, I think everybody out there that has a
family what it's like when you bring a newborn home.
(08:41):
Everybody's just excited and you're going to go back into
this crazy routine of having a newborn with a four
year old and a seven year old. But we were
a great team. We did everything together, and he was
a wonderful family man, a wonderful brother, and son and
a great great father and he's just deeply missed by
(09:04):
everyone that knew him and loved him.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
And you know, you go from a nineteen year old
to a wife, to a mother to having a chairmanship. Now,
I'm going to tell you that's a switch. And you
know he's in the business world. I mean, you talk
about Wall Street, you talk about being on that floor.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I mean that to me is chaotic.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
The three children may be the easier day, but that
wasn't your world. Now you're having high level meetings with
presidents and vice presidents of the United States and you know,
major corporations. I mean, that's quite a shift again in
(09:50):
your life in a positive way. But still, I mean
that's a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yes, And it wasn't anything I was prepared for. Just
happened to know a few people when So what happened
is the nine to eleven community, most of the families
filed a lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for
the role that they played in providing the material support
(10:19):
for the attacks. Now, our country isn't looking at Saudi
Arabia at this time. They're going into Afghanistan and into Iraq.
But we know that someone had to sponsor the attack.
Al Qaeda. We knew they were the ones that attacked us,
but who was sponsoring al Qaeda? And that wasn't being
(10:42):
looked at by our government the way it should be,
Like now we know hamas Hezballah and you know that
Iran is the sponsor of those terrorist organizations the country.
The government was not looking at who sponsored the attacks,
but our lawyers were. And that's how I got involved
in eventually becoming the national chair for the Nine eleven Families.
(11:06):
Was I became a plaintiff in the case. Then I
joined a steering committee with the law firm, and that
then progressed into working on legislation in Washington, d C.
And that's really the bulk of the work that I did,
was working on counter terrorism legislation for American victims that
(11:31):
have been attacked on American soil.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Well, I just want to say again, here's this beautiful
mama three living the Wall Street life. I mean, you've
got this beautiful home in New Jersey, you are a
devoted wife and mama, and now you're taking on terrorist organizations.
So you, to me, are like that mama that lifts
(11:55):
that car off her baby. Or stands in front of
that grizzly bearer. I mean, you are fearless, and I
don't think people really understand you are dealing with some
people that clearly are violent, clearly have money, clearly has
some things to hide, and you're like, yeah, I'm will
say it. I will say it out loud, I will
say it in front of God and country, and let's
(12:16):
go after them.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Absolutely, I am a patriot. I love my country and
we were brutally attacked on September eleventh by an enemy
I didn't even know existed. I didn't know about Al Kaita.
I didn't know about Usama bin Laden and his fat
law that they were going to attack America and kill
(12:38):
Americans on American soil. That was his goal. And I
didn't realize that they were behind some of the attacks
I'd read about in the headlines. I didn't know they
were behind the attacks of our US embassies just let's see.
I think nineteen ninety eight. I didn't know that they
were behind the USS coal attack, but they were. And
(13:02):
I didn't know very much details about the time they
hit us in nineteen ninety three, when they bombed the
North Tower. I didn't know that they promised to come
back and finish the job. I learned all of these things,
and it was horrifying to learn that there was that
much hatred against Americans and far away places, and that
(13:25):
there were terrorist organizations that were one hundred percent committed
to killing innocent Americans. But when you look at it,
you have to say to yourself, who is giving them
what they need? Because a terrorist doesn't have a nine
to five job, so who is giving them the financial
(13:46):
means to carry out these horrific attacks? And that was
the name of my organization in the beginning was Nine
Love and Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism. Our goal has
always been to expose the underbelly of terrorism, and that
is the money. And how does it get from a
(14:10):
country like Saudi Arabia into the hands of terrorists that
actually do come to America and murder Americans.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Kind of lays it out, doesn't it. I mean, I
can move to China, but I ain't Chinese. So if
you look at their background and it's Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia,
Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, well that ain't an accident.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Right, So Osami Bin Lauden was a Saudi national. Fifteen
of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi nationals. And it wasn't
a secret to the government that the Kingdom was funding
al Qaeda. They just weren't stopping it like they should have.
They weren't taking it seriously. They weren't taking the necessary
(14:56):
steps to cut off that money supply. Still haven't to
this day. Our government has not fully addressed terrorism financing.
If they did, we wouldn't see well funded terrorist organizations
all around the world. So I think when the United
States ignored that fact post nine to eleven, it sent
(15:17):
a very dangerous message to the world that the United
States of America can be really attacked. Nearly three thousand
citizens can be killed and the government does nothing about it.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
And you're talking about flight lessons, airline tickets, hotels, food.
They put some money in it and didn't even try
to hide.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
It, right they So you have to go back to
the early nineteen eight well, the early nineteen nineties and
the nineteen eighties, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was exporting
extremism around the world. They were building mosques around the
world and filling it with filling them with extremists. The
(16:00):
United States was not immune to that practice, and this
was all part of their plan to put people in
places so that when al Qaeda is a very organized
terrorist organization, and they do things very methodically and they
do things in advance to prepare for the actual terrorists
(16:21):
that where they're going to put them in place. So
it was only two weeks after the nineteen ninety eight
bombing of two of our embassies in Africa that they
sent an advanced team. Two of the same people that
were involved in that attack came to the United States
through California, into California to begin the preparation for the
(16:45):
nineteen Back then, it was twenty hijackers to enter into
the United States, and they used in moms, these extremists
in these mosques to gather individuals that could then become
part of They called their support teams, their support network,
and the first one was set up out in San Diego,
(17:07):
Los Angeles and San Diego to meet the first two
arriving hijackers. And we've learned so much about those two individuals,
Cosmi and Madar, But I'm going to tell you something
that's really shocking. We didn't learn it all from the
United States government and the FBI's investigative reports. We learned
(17:29):
most of the damning evidence against the individuals that came
into the United States or the support network. We learned
who was in charge of that support network, mostly from
the United Kingdom, and it was Scotland Yards that released
evidence that our own government refused to release. That's the
(17:53):
real shocking part to me, after all this work that
I've been doing for now almost twenty five years years
that it was last year or the year before when
our lawyers finally went over to London and retrieved all
of this evidence, and it was shocking what we saw,
(18:15):
and it was shocking what was exposed in the courtroom.
And it was that evidence with other things that were
shown in the courtroom that day that finally a judge
said to us that you have presented enough evidence that
your case can go to trial. So we're suing, not
only suing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, We're going to
(18:36):
go to trial against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It's
pretty incredible.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Unbelievable, and thank god for Scotland Yard, and thank god
for you because the more y'all are pushing and the
more you're exposing, then the better protected we're going to be.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yes, That's always been the one hundred percent crux of
why I do this is to have a safer America.
Because these cells, these these support networks that were put
in place, would call them cells, weren't just in California.
They were in Florida, they were in Virginia, they were
in New Jersey. That advanced team that came in traveled
(19:17):
through Missouri and through Arizona, so all through our country.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, I think we had some issues in Georgia.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
You probably did. It wouldn't surprise me. I should say.
You know Minnesota. You know they were taking like you said,
they were taking their flight lessons, they were taking English lessons,
getting apartments, bank accounts, gym memberships, everything that they needed
to assimilate because the first two that came here didn't
even speak English and they were terrorists.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, didn't they take English lessons as well?
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yes, so, but you had to have people here put
in place. And so this entire organization that I'm speaking
of now was run through the Ministry of Islamic Affairs
more Oh, yeah, through the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington,
d c. So that's where these Saudi nationals, Saudi government
(20:11):
employees on the Saudi payroll were working, and they were
the ones that were giving the orders on all these
other individuals and how to help the hijackers. So you
have in the embassy right there in Washington, d c
approgiatis anti American program called Moya, and they are the
(20:34):
ones that were in charge of facilitating the attacks. And
that is absolutely horrifying.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
So I mentioned Georgia. I want to talk a little
bit about the Masters. I love the Masters. I think
it's regal, i think it's historic. I think as far
as sports, it's one of my favorite Sundays of the year.
But what happened, I'm Phil Michlson out Miselle. Explain this
(21:03):
to me, Explain how this happens and people aren't losing.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Their mind over it.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yes, it was shocking to wake up one day and
hear about live Golf and that Phil Michelson and these
other you know, up and coming golfers were all part
of Live Golf. And what is live golf? Well, Live
Golf is run by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It's
it's funded by if their their financial account. So do
(21:33):
billion dollars is what I was reading. You know, it's
going to go into live golf. Well, let's what exactly
is that. Oh, it's it's going to be a golf
entity that wants to take over American golf. It's not
going to just be a rival. They want to own
the PGA T And I found that absolutely. You know,
(21:58):
we're in the middle of this lawsuit where evidence is
being shown in a courtroom how deeply involved the Kingdom
was in facilitating September eleventh, and now we've got I
don't want to call golfers American heroes, but American idols,
you know, going to join an organization by the Kingdom
(22:21):
and take over and destroy the PGAT. And my husband,
like he was a scratch golfer, he thought about being
a golf pro, going professional before he went to work
on Wall Street. He was in four tournaments and they
didn't work out as well as he had hoped, so
he decided to go to work on Wall Street. But
(22:42):
golf was a very important game to him and in
our family. He was taking Katie and Tommy to the
range and teaching them, you know, how to hit a ball.
And they were young, but they were going to start
to learn about golf etiquette, and yes, Sundays were or
the Masters that Sunday was just as special in our home.
(23:02):
Also because of the history of the game of golf,
the level of it was a gentleman's sport. The game
of golf a game that took a lot of dedication
to get to that level. It's an individual sport because
you're always trying to do your personal best and beat that,
(23:24):
and yet you're competing against great players. Also, and to
watch a golf game with somebody that loves the game
as much as Tom did, it was more exciting than
the Super Bowl. So it was very, very disturbing to
wake up and learn that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
was now going to potentially own our American golf and
(23:46):
that was really upsetting to me. So I rifled off
a letter immediately to Phil Nicholson and a few of
the others. I guess it was sent out to their agents,
trying to explain to them that it's a betrayal against
Americans and some betrayal against the sport to even consider
starting up something that would take over golf. And it
(24:11):
fell on deaf ears. I mean Phil Nicholson was asked
about it in some press conferences and he tried to
He wasn't even very polite about it, so you could
tell he was already in bed with the Saudist because
he was already being pretty rude. And that's what was
just really hard to stomach watching them all so greedily
(24:33):
excited about the sums of money they were going to
get when you have families that are still grieving over
their losses and will never be the same. No, there
were over three thousand children that lost a parent on
September eleventh, and those kids have suffered terribly over the years,
(24:55):
and it was just very painful to listen to Phil
and other golfers get so excited about betraying their country.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
And Tom was a fan of his, a huge fan.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Tom was a lefty also and the kids love to
watch him also because he was kind of a scrappy player,
you know, you could get himself into trouble, but he
always got out, so he was exciting to watch and
you know, he was just a great golfer, So it
was he was very enjoyable until he turned into you know,
(25:29):
a monster. I mean, anybody that thinks it's okay to do.
What they did is is they see money and that's
all they see. So what kind of human are you?
You know, not the kind I want to be around.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And you know, Terry, we have that in common too,
because my husband plays, he's pretty good. Our daughter has
a natural swing. I mean, they told us from jump,
don't touch it, don't give her any advice, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
But our son he can flat play. It's nice. It's
something we can do as a family.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Now.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I don't play, but I love to drive a golf
cart and I like the drink girl that comes by.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
You know, it sounds just like my family because I
was told the same thing about one of my kids.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
That's a natural swing, don't mess with it. And the
other one, you know, well, both of my sons played
in high school. Justin was the captain of his golf
team as a senior, but that was during COVID, so
that they never even got to play a match, which
was really a shame because he'd worked so hard to
become captain. But they and my daughter very natural swing.
(26:35):
So they love the game of golf, and so yes,
it was upsetting to all of us. It's so hard
to put what a betrayal feels like but anybody out
there that's ever been betrayed by a loved one, a spouse,
a boss, a best friend, it's a pet in your
stomach that hurts and it's hard to recover from. So again,
(27:02):
I think the kids have suffered so much and they
didn't need this type of you know, this type of
angst and disappointment in their lives.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Well, I know, when I first heard of LIV I thought,
this can't be real. I mean, you can't just start
your own you know, whatever it's called. I mean, a
group of professional golfers, you start your own entity. That
just seemed is like the way I felt about bitcoin.
I thought, I just can't put my face.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
On a million dollar bill and get people to use
it like that just seems like fake.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
It seems false, and it seems like there's an alternative motive.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
In my opinion, there was.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
There was an absoluteitary motive, and it was to destroy
the PGAT. It was to destroy our professional golf take
it over and turn it into a circus.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Yeah, little by little, but if you take over in
any way any fraction of an inch of our land,
our history, anything.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
It would change the landscape of Golf forever. But what really,
I guess, really was bothering me was that every kid
that was playing on their high school team or in
college right at that moment when Live Golf came out,
and because they loved the game and they were aspiring,
some of them probably to play professional, that all of
(28:28):
them would end up playing for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
None of them would ever have the opportunity of playing
for the PGAT if Lift Golf and the PGAT merged.
That was unacceptable to me, And that's why we fought
Live Golf, or I fought Live golf so hard is
I didn't want to see all those kids end up
playing for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When you are
(28:49):
an American plane in an American soil, you should be
playing for an American team. And that's what they wanted,
and I didn't want to see that taken from them.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Well, I don't think it could be said any better.
That's a good place to stop right there. Sure, Terry Strata,
I appreciate you. I appreciate your patriotism, I appreciate your fight,
and I appreciate you protecting all of us.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Well, you're very welcome. It's an honor to represent the families,
and it's now my calling to see this to the
end and to expose the Kingdom and hold them accountable.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I
always do with.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
A quote, never forget.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I'm Cheryl McCollum and this is Zone seven.
Y'all.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Tonight is a special Zone seven.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
We have the national chair for the nine to eleven
Families United with Us, Terry Strata.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Terry, welcome to Zone seven.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Thank you, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
There are so many people around nine to eleven and
what happened in this country during that time that I admire.
But I'll tell you you're one of them.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Because to me, when you think about, you know, being.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Young and cute and you get married and you know
you say them vows, it's easy. It's easy because you're
so happy and you're young, you know, till death do
his part.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, yeah, sickness and health, you got it.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Richard rapport not a problem.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
But you're not really thinking about that.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And whenever I think about you and I think about
that morning, you have three children, one.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Is four days old. Terry, mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I know it was horrible.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So just take us through your morning the morning of
nine to eleven for you.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Well, it started out like any other, you know, regular morning.
The alarm went off, Tom got up early, He's going
to go to work for half a day, come home early.
Because we had three children in the house and the
youngest was four days old. We had just brought him
home from the hospital. So Tom took a shower and
(01:35):
I went in to take care of Justin. My oldest
was seven and he wasn't feeling well, so we were
deciding on whether or not to keep him home from school.
My daughter was just four years old. It was her
first day of nursery school. And Tom came into the
nursery to see Justin and he kissed him on his
(01:58):
tiny little toes and he said, you know, I'll see
you later, baby, And I picked Justin up and I
walked down the hall with Tom, and he went down
the stairs and to the front door and opened the door,
turned around and said, I'll see you later. I'll be
home by two and I love you. And that was
the last time I saw my husband alive. But he
called you, he did. He actually called twice that morning.
(02:22):
The first phone call came in when he first got
to work, checking in on Thomas to see what decision
we had made. And I was going to keep him
home from school because he was sick. We had asthma,
and so we said goodbye, and then the phone rang again,
and I almost didn't answer it because I was busy
with the kids. But I picked it up. I thought
(02:42):
maybe he wanted to just say hi to one of them,
maybe Caitlin before she left for school. And his voice
sounded frantic on the other end. I'd never heard him
sound like this before. And he told me that a
first words out of his mouth were Terry playing hit
the building. Well that just sent you know, shivers down
(03:03):
my spine. And I'm standing in front of the television
set at this moment and there's nothing on the TV,
so I'm thinking small airplane. He said, you know it'
tar boulders fire. There's smoke, and I could hear a
lot of screaming and commotion in the background like I'd
never heard before. And Tom's been on a trading floor
for years, so I'm used to screaming, but I'm used
(03:26):
to yelling out, you know things, not screaming in a
panicked way. So he told me that he was with
a group of people that had a cell phone. We
didn't have a cell phone back then yet, and that
he was going to go to the stairwell and you know,
try to get out. So we said a few more
private things to each other, and you know, I just
(03:48):
said good luck and hung up the phone, yelled out
to my mother, who was there visiting. You know, I said, Mom, Mom,
come here, I said, you know, Tom just told me
a plane has hit his building. Then it came on
the TV. So this is you know, two or three minutes,
and I can see what the world was seeing that black,
thick smoke billowing out of the North Tower, exactly where
(04:11):
Tom was. He worked on one hundred and fourth floor
of the North Tower for Kenner Fitzgerald. So I just
started screaming to my mother. I said, nobody can get
out of that. Look how horrible that is. Nobody can
get out of that. And we made a decision right
there and then to keep the children out of the room.
Thomas and Caitlin were downstairs, so I sent my mother
(04:33):
back downstairs. I had the baby with me, and then
we just started taking turns with the kids and watching
it on television in my bedroom. So I was standing
in front of the TV when the next plane came
in and hit the South Tower. And that's when chill's
you know, just throughout my body, because you knew that
(04:56):
was deliberate, and so you now know that the first
one was as well. And you could see the size
of the airplane that hit that building, So you knew.
I knew then what was happening, and it was horrifying.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
It was horrifying, and you know, you and I don't
know each other, but I responded to nine to eleven
to the Pentagon, and when the second plane hit, like you,
it was very clear to me that this was deliberate,
that we were under attack somehow from someone. But you
watching it with a loved one in the North tower
(05:31):
on the one hundred and fourth floor, that's a whole
different ballgame. I mean we were all watching it horrified
and scared and upset. But your life was literally changing, honey,
and you knew it. I mean you said to your mama,
nobody can get out of that.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah. It just was absolutely horrifying. And to see the people,
you know, dangling out and looking for help, and that's
what I was also, help them, help them. Somebody who's
going to help these people. I ran downstairs two and
got out my rollhood decks and for people that don't
(06:12):
know what that is, that's where we used to keep
our person phone.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, you got some cans right now going home?
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Yeah, So I started calling Mike Caunter, Fitzgerald, friends, you
know people that husbands would be there also, And every
phone call was the same answer, No, I haven't heard
from him.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
No, I haven't heard from him. And then one one
wife said, yes, Danny got to call out. And I
said before or after, and they said before the plane
hit or after the plane hit. I said, okay, so
he's in the same boat thomasin he's trapped up there,
or it looks like they're trapped. I didn't know then.
(06:55):
What I know now is that all the stairwells were
gone and that the door to the rooftop was locked,
so they were trapped on those floors.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Well, Terry, tell us this, tell us about Tom. Tell
us about you and Tom. The love story.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Well, Tom was a wonderful, vibrant, very charismatic man. We
met when I was nineteen and he was twenty one
one summer at a golf club. He was an assistant
golf proback then. He hadn't started working on Wall Street yet,
and it was a a nice hot summer romance and
(07:34):
we went our separate ways, and then the next year
we met up again at the same place and he
went to work for Wall Street. At the end of
that summer, he was an outdoorsman. He loved the outdoor.
He is a fabulous fisherman. He loved a saltwater and
freshwater fish. He went hunting on an annual trip with
(07:56):
his brothers. He anything he tried to do, he excelled at.
I had a wonderful sense of humor and just a
huge heart. So we had fallen in love, and I
moved to New York City. We lived there for six
years where the Twin Tower, the North Tower, is right
there out our window. We lived right across the street
in Bownery Park City for six years before we decided
(08:19):
to start a family and we moved out to Chatham,
New Jersey, a wonderful place to raise children and still
a very easy commute into the city. So we were
happily married and had our whole future ahead of us.
You know, I think everybody out there that has a
family what it's like when you bring a newborn home.
(08:41):
Everybody's just excited and you're going to go back into
this crazy routine of having a newborn with a four
year old and a seven year old. But we were
a great team. We did everything together, and he was
a wonderful family man, a wonderful brother, and son and
a great great father and he's just deeply missed by
(09:04):
everyone that knew him and loved him.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
And you know, you go from a nineteen year old
to a wife, to a mother to having a chairmanship. Now,
I'm going to tell you that's a switch. And you
know he's in the business world. I mean, you talk
about Wall Street, you talk about being on that floor.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I mean that to me is chaotic.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
The three children may be the easier day, but that
wasn't your world. Now you're having high level meetings with
presidents and vice presidents of the United States and you know,
major corporations. I mean, that's quite a shift again in
(09:50):
your life in a positive way. But still, I mean
that's a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yes, And it wasn't anything I was prepared for. Just
happened to know a few people when So what happened
is the nine to eleven community, most of the families
filed a lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for
the role that they played in providing the material support
(10:19):
for the attacks. Now, our country isn't looking at Saudi
Arabia at this time. They're going into Afghanistan and into Iraq.
But we know that someone had to sponsor the attack.
Al Qaeda. We knew they were the ones that attacked us,
but who was sponsoring al Qaeda? And that wasn't being
(10:42):
looked at by our government the way it should be,
Like now we know hamas Hezballah and you know that
Iran is the sponsor of those terrorist organizations the country.
The government was not looking at who sponsored the attacks,
but our lawyers were. And that's how I got involved
in eventually becoming the national chair for the Nine eleven Families.
(11:06):
Was I became a plaintiff in the case. Then I
joined a steering committee with the law firm, and that
then progressed into working on legislation in Washington, d C.
And that's really the bulk of the work that I did,
was working on counter terrorism legislation for American victims that
(11:31):
have been attacked on American soil.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Well, I just want to say again, here's this beautiful
mama three living the Wall Street life. I mean, you've
got this beautiful home in New Jersey, you are a
devoted wife and mama, and now you're taking on terrorist organizations.
So you, to me, are like that mama that lifts
(11:55):
that car off her baby. Or stands in front of
that grizzly bearer. I mean, you are fearless, and I
don't think people really understand you are dealing with some
people that clearly are violent, clearly have money, clearly has
some things to hide, and you're like, yeah, I'm will
say it. I will say it out loud, I will
say it in front of God and country, and let's
(12:16):
go after them.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Absolutely, I am a patriot. I love my country and
we were brutally attacked on September eleventh by an enemy
I didn't even know existed. I didn't know about Al Kaita.
I didn't know about Usama bin Laden and his fat
law that they were going to attack America and kill
(12:38):
Americans on American soil. That was his goal. And I
didn't realize that they were behind some of the attacks
I'd read about in the headlines. I didn't know they
were behind the attacks of our US embassies just let's see.
I think nineteen ninety eight. I didn't know that they
were behind the USS coal attack, but they were. And
(13:02):
I didn't know very much details about the time they
hit us in nineteen ninety three, when they bombed the
North Tower. I didn't know that they promised to come
back and finish the job. I learned all of these things,
and it was horrifying to learn that there was that
much hatred against Americans and far away places, and that
(13:25):
there were terrorist organizations that were one hundred percent committed
to killing innocent Americans. But when you look at it,
you have to say to yourself, who is giving them
what they need? Because a terrorist doesn't have a nine
to five job, so who is giving them the financial
(13:46):
means to carry out these horrific attacks? And that was
the name of my organization in the beginning was Nine
Love and Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism. Our goal has
always been to expose the underbelly of terrorism, and that
is the money. And how does it get from a
(14:10):
country like Saudi Arabia into the hands of terrorists that
actually do come to America and murder Americans.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Kind of lays it out, doesn't it. I mean, I
can move to China, but I ain't Chinese. So if
you look at their background and it's Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia,
Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, well that ain't an accident.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Right, So Osami Bin Lauden was a Saudi national. Fifteen
of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi nationals. And it wasn't
a secret to the government that the Kingdom was funding
al Qaeda. They just weren't stopping it like they should have.
They weren't taking it seriously. They weren't taking the necessary
(14:56):
steps to cut off that money supply. Still haven't to
this day. Our government has not fully addressed terrorism financing.
If they did, we wouldn't see well funded terrorist organizations
all around the world. So I think when the United
States ignored that fact post nine to eleven, it sent
(15:17):
a very dangerous message to the world that the United
States of America can be really attacked. Nearly three thousand
citizens can be killed and the government does nothing about it.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
And you're talking about flight lessons, airline tickets, hotels, food.
They put some money in it and didn't even try
to hide.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
It, right they So you have to go back to
the early nineteen eight well, the early nineteen nineties and
the nineteen eighties, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was exporting
extremism around the world. They were building mosques around the
world and filling it with filling them with extremists. The
(16:00):
United States was not immune to that practice, and this
was all part of their plan to put people in
places so that when al Qaeda is a very organized
terrorist organization, and they do things very methodically and they
do things in advance to prepare for the actual terrorists
(16:21):
that where they're going to put them in place. So
it was only two weeks after the nineteen ninety eight
bombing of two of our embassies in Africa that they
sent an advanced team. Two of the same people that
were involved in that attack came to the United States
through California, into California to begin the preparation for the
(16:45):
nineteen Back then, it was twenty hijackers to enter into
the United States, and they used in moms, these extremists
in these mosques to gather individuals that could then become
part of They called their support teams, their support network,
and the first one was set up out in San Diego,
(17:07):
Los Angeles and San Diego to meet the first two
arriving hijackers. And we've learned so much about those two individuals,
Cosmi and Madar, But I'm going to tell you something
that's really shocking. We didn't learn it all from the
United States government and the FBI's investigative reports. We learned
(17:29):
most of the damning evidence against the individuals that came
into the United States or the support network. We learned
who was in charge of that support network, mostly from
the United Kingdom, and it was Scotland Yards that released
evidence that our own government refused to release. That's the
(17:53):
real shocking part to me, after all this work that
I've been doing for now almost twenty five years years
that it was last year or the year before when
our lawyers finally went over to London and retrieved all
of this evidence, and it was shocking what we saw,
(18:15):
and it was shocking what was exposed in the courtroom.
And it was that evidence with other things that were
shown in the courtroom that day that finally a judge
said to us that you have presented enough evidence that
your case can go to trial. So we're suing, not
only suing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, We're going to
(18:36):
go to trial against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It's
pretty incredible.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Unbelievable, and thank god for Scotland Yard, and thank god
for you because the more y'all are pushing and the
more you're exposing, then the better protected we're going to be.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yes, That's always been the one hundred percent crux of
why I do this is to have a safer America.
Because these cells, these these support networks that were put
in place, would call them cells, weren't just in California.
They were in Florida, they were in Virginia, they were
in New Jersey. That advanced team that came in traveled
(19:17):
through Missouri and through Arizona, so all through our country.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, I think we had some issues in Georgia.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
You probably did. It wouldn't surprise me. I should say.
You know Minnesota. You know they were taking like you said,
they were taking their flight lessons, they were taking English lessons,
getting apartments, bank accounts, gym memberships, everything that they needed
to assimilate because the first two that came here didn't
even speak English and they were terrorists.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, didn't they take English lessons as well?
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yes, so, but you had to have people here put
in place. And so this entire organization that I'm speaking
of now was run through the Ministry of Islamic Affairs
more Oh, yeah, through the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington,
d c. So that's where these Saudi nationals, Saudi government
(20:11):
employees on the Saudi payroll were working, and they were
the ones that were giving the orders on all these
other individuals and how to help the hijackers. So you
have in the embassy right there in Washington, d c
approgiatis anti American program called Moya, and they are the
(20:34):
ones that were in charge of facilitating the attacks. And
that is absolutely horrifying.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
So I mentioned Georgia. I want to talk a little
bit about the Masters. I love the Masters. I think
it's regal, i think it's historic. I think as far
as sports, it's one of my favorite Sundays of the year.
But what happened, I'm Phil Michlson out Miselle. Explain this
(21:03):
to me, Explain how this happens and people aren't losing.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Their mind over it.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yes, it was shocking to wake up one day and
hear about live Golf and that Phil Michelson and these
other you know, up and coming golfers were all part
of Live Golf. And what is live golf? Well, Live
Golf is run by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It's
it's funded by if their their financial account. So do
(21:33):
billion dollars is what I was reading. You know, it's
going to go into live golf. Well, let's what exactly
is that. Oh, it's it's going to be a golf
entity that wants to take over American golf. It's not
going to just be a rival. They want to own
the PGA T And I found that absolutely. You know,
(21:58):
we're in the middle of this lawsuit where evidence is
being shown in a courtroom how deeply involved the Kingdom
was in facilitating September eleventh, and now we've got I
don't want to call golfers American heroes, but American idols,
you know, going to join an organization by the Kingdom
(22:21):
and take over and destroy the PGAT. And my husband,
like he was a scratch golfer, he thought about being
a golf pro, going professional before he went to work
on Wall Street. He was in four tournaments and they
didn't work out as well as he had hoped, so
he decided to go to work on Wall Street. But
(22:42):
golf was a very important game to him and in
our family. He was taking Katie and Tommy to the
range and teaching them, you know, how to hit a ball.
And they were young, but they were going to start
to learn about golf etiquette, and yes, Sundays were or
the Masters that Sunday was just as special in our home.
(23:02):
Also because of the history of the game of golf,
the level of it was a gentleman's sport. The game
of golf a game that took a lot of dedication
to get to that level. It's an individual sport because
you're always trying to do your personal best and beat that,
(23:24):
and yet you're competing against great players. Also, and to
watch a golf game with somebody that loves the game
as much as Tom did, it was more exciting than
the Super Bowl. So it was very, very disturbing to
wake up and learn that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
was now going to potentially own our American golf and
(23:46):
that was really upsetting to me. So I rifled off
a letter immediately to Phil Nicholson and a few of
the others. I guess it was sent out to their agents,
trying to explain to them that it's a betrayal against
Americans and some betrayal against the sport to even consider
starting up something that would take over golf. And it
(24:11):
fell on deaf ears. I mean Phil Nicholson was asked
about it in some press conferences and he tried to
He wasn't even very polite about it, so you could
tell he was already in bed with the Saudist because
he was already being pretty rude. And that's what was
just really hard to stomach watching them all so greedily
(24:33):
excited about the sums of money they were going to
get when you have families that are still grieving over
their losses and will never be the same. No, there
were over three thousand children that lost a parent on
September eleventh, and those kids have suffered terribly over the years,
(24:55):
and it was just very painful to listen to Phil
and other golfers get so excited about betraying their country.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
And Tom was a fan of his, a huge fan.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Tom was a lefty also and the kids love to
watch him also because he was kind of a scrappy player,
you know, you could get himself into trouble, but he
always got out, so he was exciting to watch and
you know, he was just a great golfer, So it
was he was very enjoyable until he turned into you know,
(25:29):
a monster. I mean, anybody that thinks it's okay to do.
What they did is is they see money and that's
all they see. So what kind of human are you?
You know, not the kind I want to be around.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And you know, Terry, we have that in common too,
because my husband plays, he's pretty good. Our daughter has
a natural swing. I mean, they told us from jump,
don't touch it, don't give her any advice, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
But our son he can flat play. It's nice. It's
something we can do as a family.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Now.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I don't play, but I love to drive a golf
cart and I like the drink girl that comes by.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
You know, it sounds just like my family because I
was told the same thing about one of my kids.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
That's a natural swing, don't mess with it. And the
other one, you know, well, both of my sons played
in high school. Justin was the captain of his golf
team as a senior, but that was during COVID, so
that they never even got to play a match, which
was really a shame because he'd worked so hard to
become captain. But they and my daughter very natural swing.
(26:35):
So they love the game of golf, and so yes,
it was upsetting to all of us. It's so hard
to put what a betrayal feels like but anybody out
there that's ever been betrayed by a loved one, a spouse,
a boss, a best friend, it's a pet in your
stomach that hurts and it's hard to recover from. So again,
(27:02):
I think the kids have suffered so much and they
didn't need this type of you know, this type of
angst and disappointment in their lives.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Well, I know, when I first heard of LIV I thought,
this can't be real. I mean, you can't just start
your own you know, whatever it's called. I mean, a
group of professional golfers, you start your own entity. That
just seemed is like the way I felt about bitcoin.
I thought, I just can't put my face.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
On a million dollar bill and get people to use
it like that just seems like fake.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
It seems false, and it seems like there's an alternative motive.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
In my opinion, there was.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
There was an absoluteitary motive, and it was to destroy
the PGAT. It was to destroy our professional golf take
it over and turn it into a circus.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Yeah, little by little, but if you take over in
any way any fraction of an inch of our land,
our history, anything.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
It would change the landscape of Golf forever. But what really,
I guess, really was bothering me was that every kid
that was playing on their high school team or in
college right at that moment when Live Golf came out,
and because they loved the game and they were aspiring,
some of them probably to play professional, that all of
(28:28):
them would end up playing for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
None of them would ever have the opportunity of playing
for the PGAT if Lift Golf and the PGAT merged.
That was unacceptable to me, And that's why we fought
Live Golf, or I fought Live golf so hard is
I didn't want to see all those kids end up
playing for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When you are
(28:49):
an American plane in an American soil, you should be
playing for an American team. And that's what they wanted,
and I didn't want to see that taken from them.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Well, I don't think it could be said any better.
That's a good place to stop right there. Sure, Terry Strata,
I appreciate you. I appreciate your patriotism, I appreciate your fight,
and I appreciate you protecting all of us.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Well, you're very welcome. It's an honor to represent the families,
and it's now my calling to see this to the
end and to expose the Kingdom and hold them accountable.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I
always do with.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
A quote, never forget.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I'm Cheryl McCollum and this is Zone seven.
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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