September 11th

We all have our own memories of what we were doing on that awful day.

I was lecturing at a University in New Jersey, when people started walking in and out and my cell phone began to ring. I stopped speaking and my friend - the chairman of the department - and I spoke for a moment before he announced what had happened. And he had the prescience to say, “Today America has changed forever.”

I stayed in New Jersey and Pennsylvania for the rest of the week and it was a good thing that I did: I visited a number of hospitals where the staff was in shock, and it was helpful to have someone from outside give advice on how to handle such a traumatic situation.

A year later I returned to the same department to do a special lecture. My topic: the psychology and biology of human violence.