So as the 10th anniversary of 9/11 passes, I thought I would take the time to write my memories of that day as so many others have. I know I will never forget where I was or my feelings, but someday I may forget even more details than I already have and I want to prevent that as much as I can.
On September 4, 2001, I started my job at Fort Meade RCI. At the time I knew fairly little about the military or emergency services. I mean, I knew as much as anyone knows who learns about it at school and sees it on TV. We had some close family friends in the military, but I was not a military brat and did not have a close connection. As I started my job, each day I soaked in more and more about military families’ needs as the moved and tried to locate a new home.
Only a week into my new job, on September 11, 2001, I was on a tour with several other new employees. To be honest, I can’t tell you who was next to me in the van, or even who specifically was our tour guide. I can tell you that we got a phone call about the first tower being hit while still in the van. By the time we got back to the office take a break before the second half of the tour, the second tower had been hit and the word, “attack” was beginning to surface. Over the next couple hours the pentagon was hit, flight 93 went down, both towers fell and details began to surface. In that same timeframe, I frantically called friends and family. I knew most of them were not in harm’s way, I just wanted to hear their voices. I did however, have a few people that I really wanted to check on due to their proximity to the attacks. I wanted to talk to Jen who had recently moved to NYC and my friend Steph whose parents had careers that could put them in the pentagon or on a plane. As those of us who lived through it know, getting through to people on the phone was almost impossible and we were not yet avid texters so that was not an option. Thank God, I eventually found out that everyone I was immediately concerned about was okay. Then the true terror hit.
It took hours to get off-post that day. Security was at its highest level and the mass of people leaving clogged every exit. When I finally got home, I just started at the TV. The initial reports that I had heard did not really, at least for me, portray the true terror that happened that day. For the rest of the day and over the several days that followed, I just stared at the TV. I lived at my parents at the time and was either on their coach glued or with a friend at her house glued, soaking in every detail. I cried, I prayed, I felt thankful for my loved ones but at the same time desperately awful for those who were so directly affected. I prayed in bulk for all affected and personally for some of the separate stories we saw on the TV. I remember driving around to try to give blood, but blood banks were overwhelmed. I felt scared for our country but at the same time so proud to be American. I remember feeling like I was in a secret club of 300 million people who I could share a knowing smile with like it was a secret handshake. To lighten the mood, Eli and I would joke about which channel to watch so that we could each watch our favorite journalists, but really, it didn’t matter. We just wanted to see the progress, get more details, follow the way forward and hope to see a heartwarming story about another person who fought the odds to make it out of the rubble alive.
Eventually, the post opened back up and I went back to work, but nothing would ever be the same, especially for emergency responders and military personnel and their families. We now are commonly familiar with terms like homeland security, war on terror, Al Qaeda, WMDs and IED. The world has changed.
I am now married to a former Military Police Officer and Current Federal Police officer and have worked on Fort Meade for 10 years. I do not know what it was like before that day, but I do know now, that Police officers have to be trained differently to be able to be so much more prepared for things like that day. I know that military members and their families are making a different commitment now than they may have been expecting to make 11 years ago. I know that I am proud to be an American more than ever and am so thankful for those who put themselves in harm’s way every day to prevent another attack on our soil. The horror of that day was real but so was the bravery, the pride and the selflessness that resulted from it.
No comments:
Post a Comment