Friday 11 September 2009
Today is 9/11- the reason we’re all here, I suppose. Hard to believe the real 9/11 was 8 years ago. My baby girl turns 6 today, and she was born 2 years after the attacks.
I’m walking to the gym at 0500. There’s a 9/11 run/walk this morning. It’s a 9.11 km race around the perimeter of the base. I’ll bet a commander’s aide gets an award out of that one. About 1,500 people are participating. Some of them are wearing the free race t-shirt that the USO gave out with a flag on the front. My friend and I are walking upstream against the racers like salmon on our way to the gym. Up ahead, I see a small line of infantrymen walking in their combat gear in our direction and loading up on their MRAPs (mine resistant armored personnel carriers) for a patrol. I comment to my friend that they’re doing the real 9/11 walk. He grunts assent. Our room ran out of coffee yesterday. There’s a band playing outside the gym at the start line. They’re singing something about ‘knowing your enemy.’ I’m not sure if they wrote it or if it’s a contemporary rock song. I’m a bit out of touch with pop culture. (You’re a man of the ‘90’s, Joe……the 1890’s.)
Inside the gym, the Steelers are playing the Titans on one TV. There’s no sound. On the other TV, some VH-1 reality show is playing. Apparently, some ex-strippers have to get an over-the-hill rocker to pick them so they can win a date with a set of transvestite twins. I don’t know- there’s no sound. Just glad to be a part of the great gift of American culture.
This afternoon, I’m standing in the trauma room waiting for a Medevac. The dry-erase board on the wall says USSM x 3 (US Service members)__ MRAP vs IED. Sounds like an unfair fight to me. I wonder if they were the other salmon I saw this morning. The surgeons and ER docs waiting for the doors to open blink through tired eyes. They did 7 cases last night. That was 9/10.
That day, 8 years ago, I was working on my Master's in audiology...getting ready/on my way to my practicum site in total disbelief. It was a complete surreal moment and unforgettable.
ReplyDeleteThat day, 8 years ago, I was in 6th grade, listening to Mr. Williams give a lecture on the Civil War. He told us that the "World Trade Center" had been hit by planes and they thought it was a terrorist attack. I didn't know what the "WTC" was, they were the twin towers to me. Then I got home and saw the footage, I remember feeling very cold that day...
ReplyDeleteI remember Barb and newborn Joey came over to our house on base that day. Whoever would've thought that so many years later, you'd be celebrating your daughter's birthday while in Afghanistan? As I said to Barb, it's wonderful that someone so beautiful and so vibrant would be born on an otherwise sad date.
ReplyDeleteI wrote long post on my 9-11 day, three days into a 7 day backpack trip in Yellowstone. Post didn't take so this is a test.
ReplyDeleteI remember being awakened by my brother-in-law's phone call about the WTC/Penatgon attacks & the tension as we waited to hear our daughter Katie's voice. She had flown back to NYC where she lives on 9/10, the day before. She shouldn't have been near the WTC. However, who knew what would happen next?
ReplyDelete