On Sept. 10, 2001, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the Green Berets, was a wide-open base. Anyone could drive through most of it without showing ID. This was possible because, for many years, our country had enjoyed peacetime without major stateside security concerns.
My husband, Ted, was on active duty there, on staff at the hospital. We lived on the base. I was a therapist at a country farm where kids with disabilities enjoyed a different approach to therapy. We needed many volunteers to do this work and recruited Fort Bragg soldiers to help in their spare time. We were impressed with their eagerness to learn new skills and pitch in. It was a win-win, beautiful arrangement.
The events of Sept. 11, 2001, changed all of that. It remains one of several consequential incidents forever seared into my generation’s memories. We all know what happened at the crash sites that day. There have been thousands of stories about first responders, victims and their families. Even for those of us who were not directly involved, the events of the day are forever memorable.
At the farm, a friend called to tell us to turn on the television just as the second tower was struck. I tried calling Ted but couldn’t get through. We watched the same fiery clips and heard the same panicked, “We don’t know anything” again and again.
My colleague thought we should get cash and pick up groceries. The bank’s doors were locked, and the ATM line extended around the block. The supermarket was open but struggling to manage the onslaught of folks who all had the same idea. Most staff and most people in those lines were spouses or children of soldiers. Stress was obvious on every face, with some folks openly crying.
By that time, military personnel had been called to report immediately. They were on full alert with no clue about “next steps.” I tried heading home, but all of the roads leading to the base were backed up for miles. The normal 15-minute drive took me six hours door-to-door.
Entrances to Fort Bragg were blockaded. No one was permitted through unless they were on active duty. It seemed that the immediate frantic response to this emergency did not include a policy for non-active-duty folks who lived on the base. After trying to call Ted from a phone booth, I decided to get into the active-duty-only entry line.
Every car was being inspected, including undercarriages and motors. Military Police (MP) were carrying serious weapons that were not part of the previous “business-as-usual” peacetime state of affairs. When it was finally my turn to have my ID checked, I was scolded by the MP. The poor guy looked to be 19 years old and was clearly shaken.
He ranted at me, “This line is strictly marked for active duty only. Do you have someone who could vouch for you?” My car was searched as the nervous MP radioed his sergeant. The directive was to wait until someone could accompany me to my front door and talk with my sponsor. An hour later, an escort took me home. Ted was pacing when I pulled up, followed by an MP vehicle.
During the days and weeks that followed, there was a foreboding feeling in and around Fort Bragg. Only essential businesses in town were open, and those struggled with staffing. Troops were on lockdown. Many of the dependent families left the area to wait out the drama with family or friends elsewhere. Security at all government facilities was doubled down. It has never returned to the almost-anything-goes level that it once had been. We closed the therapy practice and wondered how we could reopen without the soldier volunteers who had been such an asset. None of them had “free time” anymore.
The impact of the 9/11 events dramatically changed the circumstances of so many lives, forever. Like most people, my loved ones and I were merely long-distance bystanders whose lives became more complicated but remained basically intact. My good fortune was not lost on me. However, I did feel personally changed by the experience.
Perhaps it was a loss of naïvete about the world beyond my reach. Abruptly sucked into drastic change, I felt torn away from notions of security. No assumptions could be made about past, present or future. Our respectable, well-prepared government, our state-of-the-art national defense … somehow were caught off guard. The “powers that be” seemed as dumbfounded as the 19-year-old MP.
The edges of those feelings softened over time, but the bewilderment and sense of loss do linger. We learned to look toward our local connections to be mutually supportive. We helped each other move on. The much-contemplated lesson for me is that it’s incumbent upon us all to strive to be informed and to pay attention globally, but act locally. Staying intentionally involved with my community has helped prepare me for future catastrophes. There has been comfort in knowing that I can “be there” for someone else and that others will try to do the same for me. On multiple occasions since 9/11, this has been a strategy for personal recovery.
Mature Content is a monthly feature from Age-Friendly Carbondale.