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Health & Fitness

Air Force Mom - REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

First Published September 11, 2011 by Air Force Mom

Terrorism:  The use of extreme fear in order to coerce or intimidate.

Air Force Mom:  September 11, 2001.  I can’t believe it’s been ten years and I remember the details as clearly as if it was yesterday.

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It was a beautiful day. The sky was blue, the sun was shining and I went to work like always. Working in an office, we are almost in a vacuum during the workday. Just another day. Suddenly there was a buzz going around the office. A plane hit one of the Twin Towers in New York City

No panic. Just a statement. A plane hit one of the Twin Towers in New York City. My first thought was, “What kind of idiot hits a building that size?” In my mind’s eye, I pictured a Cessna sticking out of a window on an upper floor. The buzz persisted. I went to look at one of the televisions in the office and I stood riveted watching the replay. And then, thinking it was another replay, watched in shock as the second plane flew into the second tower. Even then, the magnitude of what was happening hadn’t sunk in.

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One of the secretaries came to find me.  “Your daughter Melanie is on line nine.”  I was watching the television and said, “Tell her I will call her back please.”  This wasn’t unusual for our family. We talk all the time. Saying “I’ll call her back,” meant I would call her back.  In could mean in ten minutes or later tonight or maybe tomorrow. 

My daughter Melanie and her husband Will were living in Washington D.C. at this time.  My son-in-law was (and still is) active Air Force and at that time was in the Presidential Honor Guard at Bolling Air Force Base.

My daughter Melanie, my first-born child, was working at the Pentagon. 

Melanie called me at 9:10 a.m.  I didn’t take her call.  I called her back at the Pentagon at 9:20 a.m.  She said, “Mom!  Are you watching the news? I can’t believe it!”  We talked a little more, and both of us were anxious to learn more.  I said, “Thank God it wasn’t the Pentagon.” She said, “Me too but we’re in protected air space.”  She told me that she was going to hang up because the Joint Chiefs were going to have an announcement and she wanted to be around to hear what they had to say.  I said that I wanted to watch the news.  I told her I would talk to her later.  She said, “Ok mom.”

 “I love you, mom.” 

“I love you too, Melanie” It was 9:25 a.m.

Melanie:  When the Twin Towers were hit, I called you and I called Dad.  I never talked to dad, but only got his voice mail.  I called you to see if you were watching TV.  You blew me off on my phone call, so I assumed you were watching TV.  You called me back, but it was brief conversation.  I remember thinking that my family was in protected air space.  

At the office, we were going to leave for coffee but hadn’t left yet.  I don’t remember the part of the day, like the waking up part or dropping the kids off at the babysitter part, or riding the Metro to work.  What I remember thinking was, “Wow it’s too bad I have to go to work today because I’ve never seen a sky so blue.”  Since then, looking at the sky, if that cloud wasn’t there it would be as pretty as September 11.  My favorite color blue. 

I remember that I was wearing khaki pants and a short sleeved brown and tan sweater.  It was not cold enough to wear a jacket yet.  I went to work like normal about 7:30 a.m., a regular morning for me.  I had a radio on my desk.  I was working (on whatever project I was working on) with DC 101 on the radio.  DC 101 is the local radio station, with the local shock jock on the radio.  I had it on for the white noise.  Elliott in the Morning, that was his name.  His voice changed from usual banter with his staff to something different.  The tone of his voice had changed.  He was saying that a plane had flown into one of the trade center towers.  The only reason I started listening was because his tone of voice changed.  I thought, “Huh I wonder what that was all about.” 

I went to MSNBC.com on the computer.  Fox News wasn’t popular on the Internet yet.  CNN and MSNBC were the dot com sites at that time.  The MSNBC site wouldn’t even load.  “That’s weird,” I thought and I went to CNN, but it wouldn’t load either.  Fox News wouldn’t load.  So many people trying to load the web sites that it was crashing the servers. 

Because we had just moved into the newly renovated wing of the Pentagon, we had televisions up but no cable connection.  We still had boxes to unpack due to the move from the older section to the new section.   A couple of other people and I walked to Admiral’s office, which was the next hallway over because his TV was working.  Five or six of us were watching the replay of the first tower.  Watching . . . watching. . .  The Admiral came back to his office and said, “Ok, ok, that’s it; go back to work now.”  Walking back down the hallway, I said to one of my co-workers, “I’m glad we’re in a restricted air space.  We’re in the Pentagon, only five stories high, not high enough to be a target.”  I went to my desk, wanting to hear the news, still no MSNBC.  I’m antsy, and I can’t concentrate. 

I guess the second tower was hit then and heard it on the radio.  I stood up, and said, “Oh my God! The second tower was hit by a plane.”  The Navy Captain said, “No way, are you sure? “  At that point, since we couldn’t concentrate, my friend Stephen said that we should get a cup of coffee.  I remember that I grabbed $1.67 to get a cup of coffee at the Starbucks in the Pentagon.  I put it in my pocket and went to go get coffee.  While we were talking about what coffee to get, the building was hit. 

Odd, it was like watching something in slow motion but having it sped up at the same time.  The building shook, and I could smell the fire.  I had a window behind my cubicle, which was nice, but normally what I saw was a brick wall and the next corridor ring.  I could see the next ring with paper floating past.  I remember thinking, “I always wondered if debris really looked like that.”  I could see it out of my window.  It looked like a movie.  You know how a camera follows the ashes or paper out of the sky in a movie?  That’s what it looked like to me. It was a random thought.  Surreal.  To look out of the window and see the flames and the fire and be caught off guard.  I looked around at everyone and I was like, “This is bad, we need to get out of here.” 

Everyone was standing still, not knowing what to do.  We have the nations Best in our offices and we’re all looking at each other like, “Whoa . . . Is this really happening?”  We’re not at war, this is peacetime. It didn’t make sense.   I picked up my phone and called Will’s office.  I knew you could see the Pentagon from Boling Air Force Base.  I knew they would be able to see the building on fire.  I wanted somebody to know that I was alive at this moment in time.  I had no doubt that I would not be alive by the end of the day.  I didn’t think I could get out of the building.  My friend Josh, one of Will’s co-workers at Boling answered the phone. I talked to Josh, long enough to say, “It’s Melanie. We’ve been hit and we are evacuating the building.” 

At that point I lost it a little bit.  The repeated thoughts in my mind.  This is not normal.  This shouldn’t be happening.  We are in the Pentagon.  How did a plane get here? Why is the building on fire? How is this possible? How are we getting out of here? Watching as these military people  - full bird Colonels, Navy high-ranking officers – the looks on their faces told me everything.  The worst look ever.  No one was prepared for this or ever expected it to happen. 

The fire alarm was going off.  It was a new fire alarm with an automated system.  We had new firewalls because the space had just been renovated (because we were in the newly renovated part I believe this saved our lives. The older part that we moved from went up like kindling).  We had state of the art fire alarm systems, sprinklers, brand new everything.  The fire alarm was saying, “This is not a drill, exit at your closest emergency exit.”  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.   Flashing strobe lights.  Sprinklers were not going off yet, because the fire and heat hadn’t reached our section yet. 

We were trying to get out.  When you are assigned to the Pentagon, it’s like moving into a new house in a new neighborhood. You must learn the streets and how to get there.  You go to work in the Pentagon the same way, because in theory your office is like having an address.  You learn the most efficient way to get from the outside to your office. But just like outside of the Pentagon, you should be able to get from point A to point B with familiarity, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t bridges missing or roads closed at times. So you learn the quickest way to your office and that’s the way you go.  If you go the wrong way, you can’t simply keep going.  You can’t do a complete circle.  If you look at the Pentagon from above, there are five rings.  Yet you can’t start in the A ring and walk all the way around. You get to your office by the access you have learned. 

That made evacuating really hard.  When the firewalls started dropping, there is a whole new kind of panic, like  “Oh crap! That’s how I knew how to get out.  I need to go to the end of the hallway and turn left, then right, then left!” It was like evacuating from a maze.  As the firewalls closed down, new panic, and everyone had a different way of going to and from their own office.  When options close, different panic sets in.  Yes, there were signs on how to get out.  But your country is under attack and your building has been bombed.  (At this point we didn’t know it was a plane)  We got on the escalators, which were not working and walked down to try to get out.  It was like a controlled mob.  Close together, pushing to get out.  We evacuated to the nearest out door exit.  Because of where we were located, it was the center courtyard.  Now there are hundreds of people standing in the center courtyard because that was the fastest way out.  Like being in the middle of a big bull’s eye.

So we are outside, and yet completely surrounded now by the building.  How do we get from here, to really outside the building? While talking to the people, I was trying to call you, mom.  No one had phone access because the system was overloaded.  I wanted somebody to know I was alive. 

I remember looking up at the amazing blue-sky thinking, “Do you see the actual bomb drop?  If you are on the ground do you see a bomb?  Would it look like when you watch a movie?  Can you actually see the shape of it?  Can you see what’s going to happen? Do you have time to prepare?”

We still thought it was a bomb, not a plane.  The only way in my head this scenario could work would be by a bomb coming from the air.  During this time, with all of these thoughts - which was probably only about 30 seconds - the plane’s fuselage exploded.  New panic.  No screaming or yelling but definitely panic in the air.  A Pentagon DOD officer announced that the parking lot tunnel was open and we were able to evacuate to the outside of the building.  We got out through the tunnel and it came out on the other side of the building.  I remember seeing the Honor Guard Team – Will’s co-workers -had met at their evacuation point on the way to Stephen’s car.   

It was a long walk to the parking lot because we were definitely not taking the most direct route.  There were news crews there already in the parking lot.  Weird.  How did they get there so fast?  Walking around to the parking lot on our side of the building was the point we started seeing the triage areas and medical was set up, the Pentagon Child Care Center had evacuated here as well. Triage area not comfortable for me to see.  There was this guy who came out of the building - an older guy, losing his hair that looked like a typical government employee.  A Normal Government Employee except that the skin on his arm was sliding off.  He was so badly burned. 

We were being told to get out of the way.  “If you aren’t medical, go on your way.” There was smoke pouring out of the building, people coming out, that’s when you heard crying and upset sounds.  Where do we go? How do we get home? The Metro was shut down. People were in shock and just looking for direction. 

We made it to the car and onto the road.  The roads were crowded like a normal traffic situation rush hour, but even weirder was the foot traffic.  People were walking on the bridges. You just didn’t see this. We were listening to the radio.  The radio was regurgitating the news to this point. 

Stephen wanted to drop me off at the base and then go home.  It took forever to get to the base.  We got to the “first” gate at Boling, which was considered the “Navy side of the base.”  We approached the gate and I swear, the kid at the gate turned 18 the day before.  He was youngest person I had ever seen in Kevlar gear and fully armed up. He turned us away and told us to go to the main gait.  So we left and headed to the main gate.   Not only was the main gate closed, it was closed almost a half a block before the gate.  I got out of the car and approached the gate.  Weapons were actually drawn on me and I was told to get back in the car.  So.  Not a good idea to go in the main gate.  At the third gate, I knew someone personally.  This security forces person was able to do personal recognition and let me in.  I still had to get past the main gate to get to Will’s squadron. 

It was like driving through a ghost town.  The door was locked to the armory where Will worked.  I knocked, was buzzed in and that’s when I started feeling sick.  I had made it from Point A to Point B.  Now I wanted to go from Point B to Point C, which was where my children were with the babysitter.  Overwhelmed by what had happened, I hugged Will, briefly explained what and whom I had seen.  I told him I saw these eight people, the honor guard people. One of the women working with Will said, “You didn’t see my husband did you?”  No, I’m sorry, I didn’t see him.

The main goal of getting to Will was that we only had one car, he had it at work and I wanted to get home.  I waited long enough for the decision that non-essential personnel could leave.  I drove to the house in Summerfield.  I remember that at every stoplight, every turn, the steering wheel felt like lead.  The feeling started behind my ears.  It was like I could no longer move.  By the time I drove the 8-10 miles to the house and turned into the neighborhood I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to turn into my parking lot.  My head and shoulders and jaw hurt. Pain was radiating down my arms and it was hard to sit.  I pulled into housing area and there was a security forces guy checking IDs to go into housing. 

I lost it.  I had no ID.  Everything was at the Pentagon.  No driver’s license.  No debit card.  No military ID.   I had my Pentagon lanyard around my neck.  “Ma’am, I need to see your driver’s license and military ID card.” I thought I was going to throw up.  I was this close to the kids and couldn’t get there. 

I looked at the security forces guy, held up my Pentagon lanyard and said, “This is all I have,” and held up my Pentagon badge. 

“Glad you made it out,” he said, and then he let me go through.  I went to get Ryan and Zoe at the babysitter’s house.  Deidre had been trying to call me, for all these hours while babysitting these kids who might have no mom any more? When I got the kids from Deidre’s house, she said, “I love you very much and I’m glad you’re here, but you need to leave now because I didn’t think you were going to make it out alive.” The stress on her face from having kids, watching the news, not knowing if I was coming home had exhausted her.

Zoe was 16 months old and Ryan was 2. I happily got them and started to walk to our home.  When we got downstairs from Deidre’s house, the jets from Andrews had been scrambled, were flying overhead, and it scared them.  Where we lived, the living quarters have concrete steps with open spaces in between them. I had Zoe under my left arm, Ryan by his hand and pushed them to the bottom stairs and into the corner of the building.  They were both crying.  Zoe was crying because the jets were so loud.  Ryan was crying because I had smacked his head on the stairs trying to get them under.  Were these our jets or somebody else’s?  I realized they were the Andrews jets scrambling so we continued on and went inside.  I began to realize just how tired and sore I was and how much I didn’t know what to do.  It was terrible. 

In the days that followed, I attended 11 memorial services.  Two were for people I worked with in my office.  The other nine were Navy affiliated families, friends of friends or coworkers. 

Brady Howell died that day.  He sat in the cubicle across from me for nine months and had just been moved to the Navy Watch Office where the plane hit. His wife Elizabeth carried the Olympic torch when it traveled through Washington D.C. and handed it off to President Bush. 

Ryan Moss had three small children under age of ten and a wife under age 30.  It was one of the worst funerals ever.  The funeral was held in the same chapel at Arlington National Cemetery where I was married.     

Weeks later, we were allowed to return to the Pentagon to retrieve any personal belongings we left.  In my office space, my phone cord had melted into the desk. It was very sobering.

I don’t want to disappoint my family by not remembering September 11 clearly.  It is important to me to give value to what their feelings are. For a long time I could only think of how this affected me, and yet it touched everyone around me.  Why have we never talked about this in detail before?    Because it sucks.  

Air Force Mom:  I couldn’t think this full thought for a long time. What if I hadn’t called Melanie back 10 minutes later?  What if she had been one of the people who died when the plane hit the Pentagon?  How could I have lived with myself when I could have heard her voice? Because I chose to watch the news instead of picking up the phone.  What if.  What if.   

What if.

A couple of weeks after September 11th, when my office staff was at lunch, I asked the resident psychologist if we would ever feel normal again?  The room that had been filled with quiet chatter became silent as we waited for his answer. 

“Yes,” he replied.  “But it will be a different kind of normal.”

So, ten years later, my beautiful daughter is alive and well, my son-in-law and my grandchildren are thriving and we come up on the anniversary of September 11, 2001. 

Are we ok?  You bet. 

Are things back to normal again?  Yes.

But it’s a different kind of normal.

 

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