It may sound dramatic to say “A Generation Later,” but it’s appropriate. I’ll never forget that morning. My youngest child was not quite four. My oldest thirteen. Now my youngest is months away from graduating college and the oldest is married with two kids. Nine Eleven was a generation ago. Those who were children when it happened aren’t any longer. And while I’d never wish another Nine-Eleven on anyone anywhere, I sure do miss September 12, 2001 sometimes.
I was about a two hour drive from home when the planes struck the twin towers. I was stuck in traffic trying to get home as the news of the plane crashing into the field in Pennsylvania came across the radio. I live in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and traffic was hell. Understandably so. I was listening to a popular local radio station and they were taking requests for songs. I called in and when I finally got through I was crying as I asked them to play “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood. I was assured they were trying to find it and would get it on the radio.
I listened as they reported car bombs going off in DC, being very careful to state that the reports were unconfirmed. I listened as the reports of the twin towers falling came across the air. I wondered about the contents of the planes and if the attack was over or if there was some kind of biological agent released in the crashes we wouldn’t find out about for the next several days.
By the time I got home, my wife had already gotten the children out of school. The kids obviously didn’t fully understand what was going on and apparently so many parents were getting their kids out of school that the local school board finally put a stop to it and asked parents to please just show up when the school day ended instead of flooding the school parking lots to take their kids home early.
And I remember the morning of September 12th. You couldn’t go outside your house without seeing an American flag being proudly flown - in yards, on cars and trucks, in store windows... everywhere. The red, white and blue of Old Glory saturated our surroundings - and it was beautiful. I remember neighbors I hadn’t talked to in months coming over to check and see if everything was okay? Was there anything we needed? Could we help with such and such?
I was still in the National Guard at the time, and on the police department, and the communications between the National Guard armories and local agencies was better than I’d ever seen it. Deputies came to visit the armory and observe some of the training my unit was going through. Some Guardsmen were sent to participate in training with the deputies. I ended up in a position of coordinating some use of facilities and communications since I was a member of both communities - and had been for a long time.
In the weeks and months that followed the attacks of Nine-Eleven, our nation came together as I had not witnessed previously in my life time. Very few people spoke out against the President’s response and politics were not a game being played large. I guess there was simply no way to say the attacks were okay... in any way... by anybody. In those few weeks that followed the attacks you were either a patriotic American who loved our country and detested the cowardly enemy that attacked us or you were pretty quiet. The few conspiracy theory folks who came out trying to claim that our U.S. government had performed the attacks itself were largely ignored, told to shut up, or proven wrong pretty quick. I never doubted the validity of the attacks. I knew a man who was in his car on the road directly next to the Pentagon when the plane went over so close he thought it was landing on him and the wings were clipping street lights. I also had the privilege of talking to the Fire Chief who was in charge of the first response at the Pentagon a few weeks later.
Some months later I was driving up the east coast for work and met one of the NY firefighters who had responded on Nine Eleven. It was a privilege to speak with him for a few minutes and to buy him lunch before we both got back on the road for our respective destinations. Since that time I’ve also met and talked with several Harbor Patrol officers who were in boats that day... carrying out one of the largest mass water evacuations ever performed as they carried people away from the island.
All of our men and women in uniform - no matter what the uniform was - showed their mettle that day. They demonstrated, beyond doubt, their willingness to run into harm’s way if it meant even the possibility of saving a life. A month later, our men and women in military uniforms began serving justice on the enemies who attacked us and those who harbored them, aided them or supported them.
And then I look around today and I miss September 12, 2001. I miss the unification of the nation and the seemingly universal pride displayed. I miss seeing society appreciate those in uniform who sacrificed so much and continue to do so, albeit in a less spectacular way, day in and day out. I miss the bipartisan expressed love of our country, admission of our faults, and declaration to remain united as we faced the enemy and recovered from the attacks. I wish there was a way, without the death and destruction, that we could unite our nation in the same way today as it was on September 12, 2001 and the weeks that followed. Our nation, facing the worst, seemed to be at its best.
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September 11, 2020 at 04:06PM
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9/11 - A Generation Later - Officer
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