Hardly an attention-grabbing title I know. What else can anyone do however? There has been a plethora of tributes and memories recorded in virtually any medium imaginable about this day, what can I add? I admit, probably nothing; but I would be remiss if I let this day go by without any recognition.
Seven years ago... so odd how time passes and is recorded in our memories. Parts of that day and the following days seem etched in my memory as if it were yesterday. At the same time... it almost seems as if those events took place in a different lifetime, to a different person. Part of this, of course, is because in many ways it's true, for me personally, and for all of us in a general sense.
I was 23 years old and living in Columbia, SC. I had been married for just over two years and our children wouldn't come for several years down the road. I was back in school part-time at Columbia International University. While in school I worked for the grounds dept. as a utility player. Primarily equipment maintenance/repair/whatever Christy Lomas needed done (my job description would probably fill a post of its own). Nikki was teaching sixth grade at Crossroads Middle School, having just started her second year of teaching. Life was good. I enjoyed my work, I was in a groove with school. Nikki and I were loving married life, particularly married life in South Carolina. Weekends in Charleston, backpacking in the Appalachians, camping in all the various regions of the state. We had a great church, great friends, it was a happy carefree time for us; all was right with the world. That was Sept. 10.
September 11 was just like every other day. We got up early in order to drive Nikki to Irmo for school. I kept the car and drove to campus to start my work day. I had a John Deere 430 tractor to get to that had been giving us trouble for a few days. It was Tuesday, a chapel day, so I got to work pretty quickly as my morning would be cut short for services. I recall it was a cloudy day, not dark and sullen, but a lightly overcast day. Still summer in South Carolina (at least to my Midwestern tastes). I was shoulder-deep in the tractor when Jeff Fulton came striding through the shop, having just been in the truck listening the radio. He was all exercised about something. (If you know Jeff, you know this isn't that uncommon... if you're reading this Jeff, you know I mean that in the nicest possible way) from my position under the tractor it sounded like he said someone had run a plane into the World Trade Center.
I must admit, at this point my reaction was little more than to extracate myself from the tractor long enough to take another sip from my coffee mug (smeared with grease by now) and say something insightful like, "uh huh." I shook my head at whatever yahoo celebrity had run his little Cesna into some New York skyscraper and went back to work.
Jeff came back out from office muttering something about explosions and fire and who knows what else... I had work to do. Wasn't long before someone said they were trying to hook up a TV in the breakroom so we could catch the news. What? All for some idiot that couldn't see a 110 story building in his flight path? I dusted myself off and figured I might as well refill the 'ol coffee cup and see what the hubbub was about when someone (Dick Lindsey?) grimly tells me that a second plane had hit the towers. What? By this time I was in the breakroom and trying to discern the images on the screen as several folks tried to fabricate an antennae. You all know the images I saw. They're imprinted on our collective memories.
They were replaying the second plane hitting over and over again, trying to figure what kind of plane it was. I stood in disbelief as both towers came down. We eventually moved over to the chapel to find out that they had set up CNN on the video projector. The dust, the confusion, the replays, the speculation. We tried to take it in. The world was changing. Before our eyes. The Pearl Harbor attack couldn't have been anything like this, broadcast live on CNN. No red "meatball" on the side of the planes to identify our enemy. Just fire, dust, death, confusion.
That night and the days that followed are bit more blurry. I have memories of gathering around the radio with Mike and Ann Prime, listening to President Bush give some of the best speeches of his life. I remember listening to him and knowing we were at war. We would go to bed late, having been glued to the TV, we would get up in the dark hours of the morning, watching the TV as we got ready for work. The skies were strangely quiet with all air traffic grounded. I do have a specific memory of watching airplanes in the sky afterward and noticing contrails that indicated where a plane had sharply changed direction. Mentioning it to Nikki only to find out she had been watching it as well. It was an eerie time.
The world changed that day, particularly for Americans of course, but the world changed. We were at war. The terrorists had been at war with us, but now we finally acknowledged that, and went to fight them. You could argue we've lost our way a bit here and there, but we were fighting back.
This is another oddity of our times, both good and bad. In a very real sense the world had changed, dramatically. However, in many ways that you might expect, it still has not. Look forward to today. We still generally live in peace and prosperity. I know, I know, things aren't as good as some folks say they should be, but we really do. The little towns of middle America live from day to day, much as we always have. My kids ride their bikes up and down the sidewalk, the old men gather for coffee and donuts and watch the corn grow, we complain about taxes, gas prices and the governor. We still live as if we're not at war, we still live as if we're safe. This is a credit to our armed forces (these same middle-American towns do send a lot of guardsmen to the Middle-east, we're not that isolated), and to the unswerving dedication of our leaders, particularly George W. Bush.
I don't want to get terribly political here at the end, but I believe he is a much greater president than even I have given him credit for. I have strongly disagreed with how he has handled most domestic issues, among other things. However, I believe, at least for him, all those other issues faded pretty quickly and permanently into the background when he spoke these words on Sept. 20 to a special joint session of Congress:
"It is my hope that in the months and years ahead life will return almost to normal. We'll go back to our lives and routines, and that is good. Even grief recedes with time and grace. But our resolve must not pass. Each of us will remember what happened that day and to whom it happened. We will remember the moment the news came, where we were and what we were doing... ...I will not forget the wound to our country and those who inflicted it. I will not yield, I will not rest, I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people."
He was absolutely right. Life for most, has returned almost to normal. We do remember that day. He has not yielded his resolve to preserve the safety of this nation. Let us not either. Let us live our lives as free Americans, let us remember that day, let us not grow complacent in that struggle that sometimes seems so far way.
~ Gabriel
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