Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – Sept. 11, 2025 – On the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a Jonesboro native who worked at the nation’s capital sat down to reflect on her time in the wake of and aftermath of the tragedy.
Cathy Travis shared her story with residents at St. Bernards Village on Thursday. She had worked on Capitol Hill for 25 years, holding positions such as communications director, senior advisor, and political consultant for various members of Congress, until she retired in 2008.
Since then, Travis has been working as an author and writer, publishing several works. Her 2013 book, “Target Sitting,” details what she went through during her time on Capitol Hill when the attack occurred.
She explained that when she arrived at her office, the first plane had already hit the World Trade Center, so the incident was already on the news. By the time the second plane hit, she said it was apparent what was going on.
“New York’s under attack. This isn’t an accident,” she said.
One thing that came to Travis’ mind regarding that day’s events, she said, was the never-ending trauma, making each day more difficult than the last.
“Not knowing what’s going to happen, and you get to work and kind of fall into the same routine, and it’s kind of pushed back to the back of my mind again, but on the walk to work, it was hard,” she said.
Besides getting out of the building, a top priority for Travis was talking to her mother when she got home. She said she didn’t know when the attack would end.
“When I got to my house, I called my mother again, and she called me by my first and second name, Cathy Ann, and in the South, you know you’re in trouble when parents call you by two names,” she said.
Once Travis got word of what had happened, she realized she had a lot of work to do.
“I talked to the boss and said, ‘Where are you at? What do you want? I want to start talking to people. Let them know you’re not dead,’” she said.
The attack was something that Travis had never been through, and she explained that she didn’t know what to do at first to cope. That’s when a counselor told her to write in a journal detailing her thoughts. While she thought it wouldn’t help, she said it actually did.
After a while, she thought it would make a good book and began writing “Target Sitting” in 2011.
Writing the book was not challenging for Travis, she said, but having to read some of the journals brought back feelings she had around the time of the attack. However, writing the book was a way to overcome those fears and relate her experience to readers, she explained.
“I just want to tell them that it was not easy. That trauma stays there, it doesn’t leak, and it comes and bites you in the butt at the most inopportune times,” she said.
You can buy a copy of “Target Sitting” by clicking here.
