Ready to Go Home and Remembering 9/11

While I enjoy the opportunity to visit the left coast I really would prefer to have something to do.  The bus made incremental progress which was very educational for the mechanic but no impact whatsoever on my duties.  The bus manufacturer’s sales rep took us out to lunch today where I educated him on the benefits of a keto diet.  My son in law needs to know I am passing on the wisdom.

The Bus Factory

It really is fascinating to watch the progress of the bus.  These guys have made a real science of the progress.  What was a bare frame the day before now had an engine and some of the thousand different electrical wires needed.  I could never figure this process out and feel good they can. 

Our Bus Yesterday

I chose not to go into San Francisco today.  The city lost some of its allure with the traffic we encountered yesterday.  More than that, the city’s ability to draw me in is diminished by the absence of my favorite Panamanian. 

Well, that and a Red Sox game starting at 4pm.  It was so weird to watch the game with the sun streaming through the window.  I adjourned down to the most excellent sports bar and immense TV screens for dinner and the end of the Sox game.  They rewarded my loyalty with a stirring extra inning win over the Rays.  All this before 8pm.  I kind of like this left coast thang.   

My New Favorite kind of Fish - Thank You Mr Carp

Thankfully today I go home, I’m bored.  I’m also concerned because I’m hearing reports of Buddy consuming excessive amounts of fallen vegetables.  Time for a rescue!

As yesterday was 9/11 I found my mind wandering back to that very long day.  I’ll post again what I wrote about 9/11 last year.  Never forget and continue to make them pay.

 I was assigned to the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. I remember a beautifully clear day where the oppressive summer Washington, DC heat was finally gone. We had recently dropped off my daughter for her freshman year at Boston University, my son was a junior in high school, and my wife worked at an adult day care facility in Northern Virginia. I was actually in a satellite office in Crystal City while our Pentagon offices were refurbished.

 

My morning routine was to head out for a run along the Potomac River where there was a nice running trail. I ran around the Pentagon and glanced over at the helipad where I had taken several trips out of and then wound my way down to the river. I had just reached the river, on the opposite side of the Pentagon from the helipad, and turned south when I heard a very loud bang. There was always a lot of construction going on in nearby Crystal City so I initially thought that someone had used a little too much explosive for a new roadway.

 

As I continued my run I heard police sirens blooming from every direction. I reached a gap in the trees and could see a column of smoke rising from the Pentagon. I had just about reached the point where the running trail nears National Airport and I was greeted by a truly surreal sight. The airport, in reaction to the earlier attacks in New York City, was being emptied. People, with their luggage in tow, were wandering down the running trail with no real sense of where they were going, only that they had been ordered to leave the terminal. I gave directions to the nearest hotel to some and then headed back to my office, by now the sirens were almost deafening and traffic had come to a complete stop in both directions on the nearby George Washington Parkway.

 

When I reached my office I learned the true scope of the disaster and watched the towers fall on a TV someone had set up in their cubicle. There were a series of follow up explosions as transformers blew up in reaction to the Pentagon disaster. A couple guys and I made our way over to the Pentagon to see if we could help with any evacuation but the area was already cordoned off. We helped the rapidly growing casualty collection in the south parking lot; there were a lot of dazed civilian workers. The military, even those wounded were trying to help out; we all realized we had just gone to war.

 

Eventually we were ushered away as more of the professional emergency workers showed up. I returned to my office and decided it would be a good idea to let my family know I was alive. I called my wife who had heard and was just about to go into full blown panic mode. I called Boston University because I didn’t have my daughter’s dorm room number with me and when I explained where I was calling from the operator connected me directly, even though that wasn’t usually allowed. I spoke with my daughter’s roommate who promised to find my daughter and let her know. A similar call to my son’s high school followed by a call to my mother’s house. I had to leave a message there since she out shopping and she later told me that was the best phone message she ever received because she had convinced herself I had been killed after hearing the news on the car radio.

 

All buses, my normal way home, were shut down at the Pentagon. Washington DC was shutting down and everybody was released from work at the same time. I went to the Metro station and waited while five different trains, packed to the gills, went by until I was able to squeeze into one. I rode it as far as I could and then walked up to a nearby mall where I could wait for my wife to come pick me up.

 

I sat in a bar and watched the day’s events unfold on TV. One of the other patrons claimed to have been driving on I-395 and saw the plane plow into the Pentagon. He said he would never forget seeing the airline lettering so clear and so close. The plane went right into the area near the helipad, where I had run ten minutes before. After an hour the entire mall closed and I had to go wait outside a bookstore, also closed, for about two hours before my wife was able to get me.

 

One of the most memorable and cherished things from that horrible day were the phone calls we received all that night as friends and family from around the world, knowing I was assigned to the Pentagon, called to insure I was okay.

 

My wife was a little shocked the next day when I told her I was going back to work but I needed to, I was so angry. It didn’t help when I arrived at the Pentagon, smoke still rising with bodies still unrecovered, that I was greeted by a group of protestors reveling in the destruction. It took a lot of self restraint not to kick some serious ass at that point.

 

I was so glad Clinton was out of office because I knew he would have been incapable of making the tough decisions required by this act. He would have thrown a few cruise missiles and called it a day.

 

We as a nation learned that day that there are some people who cannot be reasoned with and needed to die; that was the only way to end the threat and that you couldn’t do it from a distance.

 

I also remembered the way the country came together for a short time and I felt glad my kids were around to see it; to see what a united America was like. This eroded over time as the politicians felt safe enough to stop cooperating again, but it did happen. It was another object lesson for evil as well, don’t wake up the sleeping giant, when you do, be prepared to experience unprecedented wrath. These were my memories of the day when everything changed, but maybe not enough. 

Red X Where Plane Hit
Blue Line Where I was Running 10 Minutes Before
Yellow X Where I was When the Plane Hit