In remembrance, 11 September 2001.
Monday was the fifth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks and I thought that this would be a good time to put my memories of that day down in words.
The day started out like any other. It was a Tuesday and a workday, so I was in my office at Fort Stewart by 6:30 AM. My colleagues were all in by 7:30. Shortly after nine, a coworker's wife called him and said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Like thousands, if not millions, of others we thought she meant a small plane had accidentally hit the building. Buddy kept a small TV on his desk and he turned it on, playing with the rabbit ears to get reception. That was about the time that the second plane hit the other tower. There were about seven of us standing around the TV at that point -- the ones who worked in that office. All of us gasped out loud when we saw the second plane and at least three of us said "That was no accident." or "That was an attack!" or words to that effect. About that time our bosses came in and we all stood around the TV for quite some time. We were especially hard hit by hearing of the attack on the Pentagon -- we all knew people who worked there. At some point, my husband called to make sure I knew what was going on. Later, my older son called from his job.
I have to admit that not much work got done that day. We had a constant flow of people coming into our office to watch the little television. One of the things that changed around here after 9-11 was that most buildings on post got cable TV and a television in the conference rooms and certain common areas so that we could watch CNN in emergencies. Seems kind of strange that the government relies on CNN to keep them informed, doesn't it?
Sometime before lunch our director, an Army colonel, was called to post headquarters for a meeting. When he came back we were briefed on the alert system in effect at that time. We were at the highest state of alert. Armed guards were at all the gates and everyone had to show ID to get on post. We were told that there would be delays getting on post so we needed to leave for work earlier.
After I got home from work that afternoon I sat down with my husband in front of CNN. My adult sons came in before dinner and both of them hugged us both and sat down with us in front of the TV. I think we ate frozen pizza for dinner. The dinnertime conversation was about the attacks and I know at some point one of my sons said we needed to get some guns in the house. I asked wryly whether he really thought terrorists were going to invade Hinesville? I suggested maybe we should mount an M-60 machine gun on the roof and Ric thought that was a pretty good idea. After dinner I was going to call my Mom, but thought I'd just watch a little more news first. About 6:30 PM, the phone rang and it was my Mom. She said that I was the only one of her five children that hadn't called that afternoon. I told her I was at work and that I'd been going to call in just a few minutes, but got sucked in by what was happening on TV. We talked for awhile and then said good night.
The next morning I left for work half an hour early to try to get to work on time. I would have had to leave at midnight if I wanted to get on post by 6:30... What a mess! The traffic to get on post was backed up for miles in all directions. I personally sat in traffic for almost three hours -- and I was lucky. Some people sat in traffic for up to six hours on September 12, 2001. When I got to the gate I had to show my ID, car registration and proof of insurance and open up the hood and trunk so they could be checked. Every car was going through the same thing. The guards at the gate had M-16s and they weren't slung over their backs either -- they were locked and loaded. There were two guards at each car -- one inspecting and one pointing his M-16 at the car. In addition, there were humvees with mounted machine guns with the gunners sweeping the perimeters at each gate. It reminded me of when I woke up with a tank in my yard while I was stationed in Korea at the time Park Chung Hee was assassinated. It's a terrible feeling.
The conversation that day was all about the experience of getting on post. "How long did it take you?" "Did you see the guys with the machine guns?" "The MPs had this guy in a white van spreadeagled on the ground..." Some people in our office reported that the Hinesville Police were turning people around and telling them that "You Fort Stewart people can't tie up traffic like this!" A group of ladies I worked with parked their cars at McDonald's and walked the final mile to work. What was truly amazing is we were just making observations about the traffic, not complaining or ranting and raving. The traffic was bad for several weeks after 9-11, but never as bad as it was on the 12th. It did cause a lot of lost revenues for lunch places, because you couldn't get on and off post, let alone eat, within the lunch hour for quite some time. My husband and I stopped going home for lunch and started eating in my office everyday. We didn't eat lunch at a restaurant for a couple of months. Previously, we'd done so a couple of times a week. Eventually, though, the restrictions were eased, though we still have to show ID to get on post.
On the evening of the 12th my Mom called me again. This was highly unusual, because our routine was a single phone call from me on Sundays. I asked if something was wrong and she said "No. You just sounded really sad when I talked to you yesterday. I wanted to make sure you were okay." I told her I WAS really sad, but I was okay. Selfishly, one of the things that made me the most sad about this fifth anniversary was remembering my Mom being worried about me. She died in May 2003 and the anniversary of 9-11 reminded me that now she won't be calling to see if I'm okay.
Eventually life returned to a new kind of normal at Fort Stewart and in the surrounding communities. We stopped having machine guns pointed at us within a week or so and the M-16s went away shortly after that. Eventually the military guards were replaced by civilian contractors. Sometime in November 2001 I glanced at my driver's license and realized that it had expired on my birthday -- 5 days after 9-11. I'd been planning to take the afternoon off on the 12th and go get it renewed, but after 9-11 I just totally forgot.
Written by Patricia Jones Dumond at Hinesville, Georgia, 13 September 2003.