My mom is in school and one of her teachers gave them an assignment of writing an essay on how the events of 9/11 effected them or someone they know. She gave me a call and asked me to email our story for her essay.
David and I were newlyweds and stationed at RAF Lakenheath in England. We had only been in England for 3 months, married for 3 months, and new to the whole military way of life.
I was working at a bank on base and was attending a training course at another base that was outside of London. It was about a 2 hour drive from our base. David had driven my coworker and myself to the base for the course. So we basically relied on a taxi to get us from our hotel to the base for the training course.
The day of 9/11, we were done with our course and waited and waited and waited even longer for our taxi to pick us up and take us back to the hotel. Finally an airman from security forces came and picked us up and said the base was on lock down and that he would take us to our taxi. We all gave him a blank stare!! We had no television in the classroom so we had no clue of what bombshell he was about to unload on us.
The airman told us that 2 planes had hit the Twin Towers in NYC and another attempted to hit the Pentagon. We are all military wives and we knew at that moment that it was an act of terrorism. When you are stationed overseas, you attend briefings with your military spouse on safety issues overseas. We had been briefed on Bin Laden and that name spilled right out of my mouth.
The airman seemed like he was in a rush and we were all in shock!! We didn't ask too many questions. We got in our taxi and the driver was more than happy to fill us in on the events. But the only thing we could think of was when our husbands would be deploying.
We got to the hotel and they had the BBC news on in the lobby. All of the British people were comforting us and asking us if we had family in NYC. Luckily, none of us did. They were all very sympathetic and accommodating in our time of shock, fear, anger, and any other emotion that you go through during something like this.
It was several hours later before we FINALLY got in touch with our husbands. My husband couldn't give me any details over the phone but he said that he was trying to get to our hotel to pick us up and bring us back home. His supervisor eventually agreed to let him leave the base for long enough to make the trip up to pick me up and bring me back to Lakenheath. But he couldn't get me until the next day.
The rest of the night we were glued to the tvs. We would cry, we would yell, we were basically just in schock and wondering how our lives as military wives were about to change. But we were all proud of our husbands because we knew that they were about to serve a huge mission in the military and honor those of died from the events of 9/11.
When David picked me up, I was full of questions. He told us that only essential military were allowed on base. We lived off base and there was no way I would be seeing that base for a few days!! Since the base was on shutdown, David had to get gas off base. I remember him telling me that he spent $70 on gas. Ok, so today that is the norm, but 7 years ago!!!!
As we drove past the base, I was amazed by how many news stations and reporters were camped out by the base. David said that they were not allowed to talk to the press.
We finally got home and I rushed in the house to call my mom and let her know that I was ok. We cried and cried!!! I was very relieved to be home because we did not have cable. We were going to be moving into base housing in a few months so we decided to wait on cable. It was nice to have a break from the news and the images.
The base finally opened up about 3 days later. But it was never the same. Every car was searched. Anything in your car was searched. Every building that you walked into, you had to show your military ID. It was a different era from here on out. The credit union, that was next to our bank, received an envelope in the mail with white powder in it. They were evacuated and so was our bank. The fear of anthrax was overwhelming. We had to start wearing gloves just to open up our mail.
Things eventually calmed down some but the security levels were still really high.
On March 17, 2003 we watched the news of Bush warning Sadam to get out of Iraq within 48 hours or war would be declared. I know you are wondering how I remember that date. I was in labor with Tyler. The day that we left the hospital, war broke out. David had to report back to work and was on standby. My parents were unable to make the trip to come see their first grandchild.
Luckily, David did not deploy to Iraq until 2005. He was supposed to be deployed over the summer and his squadron comes home today.
I cannot believe that it has been 7 years. I remember my mom saying that she remembers every detail of when Kennedy was assassinated. Well I know that I will never forget the events and the aftermath of 9/11.
May God Bless all of those who lost loved ones that day. And May God Bess all of our military and their families that are home and abroad.
And also, today is one of my good friends birthday!! What a birthday, right!! Happy Birthday Cissy!!!
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