With the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, I thought I would take a minute and reflect on my memories of that day. It’s not so much that my story is unique, but it serves as another perspective.
I was in the Army stationed in Washington. At that time, my unit was out in the field, participating in an exercise. We had been out there for three days. I was working on the night shift. I remember it was approximately 7:30 am (so that would make it 10:30 am eastern time), and we had just finished the change-over brief with the day shift. I was beginning to walk out of the command tent and mentally planning the next half hour: get some breakfast (my evening meal) and go to my tent to sleep for the next six hours or so before beginning the cycle over again (wake up, get dressed, shave, make sure there was nothing serious going on before I grabbed some dinner (my breakfast) and go back to the command tent for the (final) night of the exercise and then stay awake to break everything down and go home. Things didn’t go that way.
A Major I knew was walking into the command tent as I was going out. He was carrying a transistor radio and had a very serious look on his face. I asked him what was wrong, and he said ‘they’ve attacked the World Trade Center’. I did a 180 and followed him back into the command tent where our commander was giving directions for the days missions and activities. The Major put the radio on a table and we all stood and listened for about 2-3 seconds before the commander said, ‘get my driver’. I walked quickly out of the command tent and found the driver and told him to get ready to bring the commander out of the field. Once I made sure the driver was set, I tried to eat, and go to sleep. It was very difficult to sleep, as I didn’t have any real idea at the time of what was going on, but I knew it was something we as a country and a people had never experienced before.
After finally getting some sleep, I got up and went through my routine (as I described it above). But I immediately noticed there wasn’t the ‘hustle and bustle’ that had characterized the exercise up to this point. The exercise had been halted while I was asleep. I asked and found out about the halting of the exercise, we were to wait until our planned time to come out of the field. As I went to dinner, we were all discussing what had happened. As the details were just unfolding as I went to bed, I didn’t know about the falling of the twin towers, or the attack on the Pentagon, and details were still very sketchy about a possible fourth plane. I took it all in with a growing pit in my stomach as the enormity of it hit me. The entire last night out in the field, all of us on night shift listened to the radio as they replayed the events of the day. More details were coming out and of course we listened. We listened in shock, almost numb. For Americans, a terrorist attack on our own soil was such a foreign concept I had difficulty coming to grips with it.
The next day we packed up and got out of the field. The route for us to get back in was difficult as roads we had gone out on were closed due to heightened security. Once we were back, and had done everything possible to close up and clean things up/out, we were allowed to go home. There was only one way in and out of post. The other gates were closed (again due to heightened security). It took a very long time for me to get home, and once I did it was a bittersweet reunion with my family. We were able to exchange our stories about how we heard, and discuss our fears in those first few hours.
The days and weeks following were a continued series of changes: new realities, new fears, new work. Looking back, it was as if everyone was asleep and had been jarred awake by what happened. Many significant events afterward seemed to have its roots in that day. It is one of those events where you can ask someone ‘where were you when you heard?’ Or, ‘where were you when it happened?’ It’s a sort of common bond with our fellow citizens. The best way I can think of to describe it is, ‘the day we lost our innocence’. Others may have used the same phrase, I don’t know, but it fits for me.
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