9/11
It was evening in Chengdu, China on September 11, where I taught English at Sichuan University, twelve hours ahead of Central Time in the US. My son called me from a high-rise office tower in downtown Chicago and told me in a surprisingly calm voice of that day’s horror. There was fear that other large cities were still at risk and he had helped evacuate the floor where he worked.
My mind raced, trying to keep up with the horrendous things he was telling me, trying to take it all in. When we hung up, my body was shaking. Nothing seemed real. I worried about my son getting home safely and there would be no sleep for me that night.
The next morning, in a daze, I made my way to the US consulate not far from my apartment. When I arrived, there were other ex-pats presenting their passports to go through the gates.
They were all there for the same reason I was there: to be with fellow Americans. To be at the next best place we could call “home.” Seeing our glorious flag flying inside the gate lifted our spirits.
Inside the consulate, we were ushered to a back room where we could watch and hear the news commentators on a large TV. We sat transfixed, the only sound came from those of us who were weeping. Nobody left their seats for the longest time. Except for whenever the flag came into view on the screen. Then we would all stand. What else could we do?
God Bless the U.S.A. Meredith McLeod Dunton McLeod, Texas
National tragedy sparked emergency response improvements
As I look back to that day 20 years ago, I remember how unprepared we truly were to defend our communities and country against attack by terrorists. Nobody knew what to do - Confusion…nobody prepared...a plane as a bomb?
The morning of September 11, 2001 changed my life - as a 14-year employee with the Atlanta Fire Department I could not believe or understand the devastation that was taking place. As we gathered to watch the events unfold it made me angry from the confusion of why this would happen. After watching both fire and police personnel along with citizens assist in helping save lives from this devastating event and yet losing their life trying to save someone they have never met. This event confirmed my passion to serve as a public safety servant to assist the needs of our city and community in emergencies.
From the 9/11 incident many changes have been made in emergency response procedures to incidents. It has opened many avenues of funding for training, new equipment, better strategy and tactics to mitigate emergency response along with networking with state and federal agencies
The citizens of Cass County are blessed as to the many volunteers that stepped up to the challenge of helping one another. I can say this from personal knowledge, on September 4, 2011; Cass County experienced the largest natural wildfire disaster in the history of the county. The Bear Creek Fire consumed approximately 41,000 acres spanning across Cass County and Marion County. 116 residential homes were destroyed; Over 43 fire departments along with State and Federal resources were utilized. This incident was devastatin to our community, but due to the events that took place on 9/11, we have changed our approach to the everchanging society we live in each time we are called for help.
That national tragedy also enhanced my personal outlook as to dig deeper into the intent and the hatred that people have toward our nation and one another. Many lessons were learned and we are much better prepared today.
Robin Betts
Public Safety Director
City of Atlanta, Texas
There are events which leave an indelible mark on our collective American past. The assassination of JFK, the Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion, and September 11th all come to mind. Each tragedy created a shared experience for our American society. These are experiences where we can tell one another exactly where we were and what we were doing at that moment in history. Today, twenty years after the events of 9/11, our country and our people share very few experiences, tragedy or otherwise. We are a long way from the days when everyone watched the same sitcoms and newscasts on television or heard the same music on the radio. Nowadays, we only view news that affirms our viewpoints, television is “on-demand,” we have streaming music platforms tailored to our preferences, and social media provides an endless number of custom-made advertisements and entertainment to scroll through. In the days following the attacks, we found unifying resolve to fight back against terrorists and those who provided them safe haven. Was 9/11 the last shared experience we can collectively look back on, and will we ever find the resolve again to tackle the big issues in our world? Only time will tell. Certainly the current and ongoing global pandemic is an experience shared by all of us, but each of our experiences with it are vastly different and vastly divided.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, our nation watched together national news broadcast as smoke billowed from the first building, and the second plane hit the twin towers. We all watched in horror and awe as first responders ran towards danger and the imperiled tower occupants leaped from windows to escape the smoke and heat. The Pentagon would be next; and then we would learn of another plane crash in a field in Pennsylvania, it’s passengers choosing to die fighting rather than allow it to reach its intended target. In an effort to prevent additional attacks, the FAA quickly initiated a national ground stop to all air traffic.
On Thursday, September 13th I was on one of the first flights out of DFW to Washington Reagan International Airport. I remember the silence; the stoic faces of the people trudging through the airport just two short days after an attack on home soil. The nation was in shock and I was among the first passengers flying in a post 9/11 world. The next two weeks in DC would be surreal as I saw our national monuments, usually crowded with tourists and open to the public, shut down with concrete barricades trucked in to increase standoff distance and limit access to these symbolic potential targets in our nation’s capital. A short month later, my entire Army Reserve Battalion, the 321st MI BN would be called to active duty for nearly two years. Elements of our unit would deploy to support multiple missions in the Central Command area of responsibility including Afghanistan, Kuwait, Jordan, and Uzbekistan. Others would serve at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba effectively standing up the GITMO interrogation facility there. Many would contribute to the homeland security mission from Fort Hood. I had no way of knowing then that I would return to this battalion as Command Sergeant Major almost 20 years later as the last Expeditionary Military Intelligence Battalion in Afghanistan, as we ended America’s longest war.
Inevitably, people ask themselves, “was it worth it?” I have friends who invested years of their lives in Afghanistan for the war on terror. Twenty years of conflict, thousands of lives lost, and trillions of dollars spent on a mission to deny terrorists a foothold and a safe haven from which to launch another attack against America. Many of our successes are not known. Nobody talks about the attacks that didn’t happen so it’s impossible to calculate a return on this huge investment. Historians will debate this for the next millennia. But for the young girls who lived in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, who were educated and allowed to vote and participate in their own form of government, our presence and influence was invaluable. Sadly, evil thrives in darkness and our light of freedom seems dim at times. Some have said, the American military has been at war, but the American public has been at the mall. The civilian-military divide is real. Only two percent of the U.S. population served at the peak of the Vietnam War. By comparison, less than one percent now serve. We take so much for granted and are blessed beyond measure to be living in the United States of America. We are still the world’s last best hope.
If you are reading this article, you are likely old enough to remember the events of 9/11. This is especially true if you’re reading it from the newspaper and not an online platform. What you may not realize is that most of those serving in our nation’s military today were not even born yet when it happened; and many others are too young to remember it. It is one thing to join a peacetime military, as I did in 1997. It is quite another to have volunteered in an era of perpetual conflict. To those young men and women, we owe a great debt of gratitude. We now enter an era of great power competition as near peer forces like China and Russia threaten our interests around the world. I wonder what the next shared experience for our American people will be and pray it does not take another tragedy for our nation to find its resolve.
On this 20th anniversary of 9/11, may we all remember – those whose lives were lost; those who ran toward danger in the name of the greater good; those who have fought the perpetuation of evil since then; and the great American spirit of unity that abounded in the days, weeks and months to follow. I pray we never forget.
Mayor Travis Ransom
Atlanta, Texas