9/11 – 22 Years Later

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Time is an interesting concept, isn’t it? It can seem to fly, it can seem unhurried, and sometimes it can feel like time stands still. Time can blur, fade, or perhaps wipe away memories. Some say time heals. Twenty-two years is a long time, yet for many the experience we all collectively witnessed on September 11th, 2001 —?some more directly than others — is still deeply seared into our psyche. For me, the passage of the two decades+ since that day have passed quickly with a lot of life lived, family experiences shared, milestones passed, and steps taken into new chapters of life. That day, though -- that day -- and all that I witnessed, all that I felt, and all that I feared is still as fresh now as it was that Tuesday morning. Most of the time I can push the events into the recesses of my mind. However, each year in the days leading up to the 9/11 anniversary there is a sense of dread I begin to feel that time has not been able to prevent. Not yet anyway. My mind and my senses still relive the experience as if it’s happening real time.

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It was such a spectacularly pristine morning, a “clear and a million day”, as I’ve seen it described in some of the literature I’ve read about the day. The whole eastern seaboard, I believe, shared the same crystal-clear blue sky. I had been working for Lockheed Martin for about one and a half years and as I did most mornings, I rode the train into work that day arriving quite early. Although I had a radio at my desk, the volume was low because I was in a shared space and mindful of my officemate. I could hear chatter about a plane hitting a building, but I didn’t hear where.? My husband was stationed at the Pentagon at the time doing his joint tour on the Joint Staff in J2, which is the Intelligence Directorate. He called from his office sometime before 9:00 a.m. to ask if I had heard what had happened in New York. It was at that point I became much more aware of what was going on.?

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After the second plane flew into the South Tower,?I called my husband’s office to ask if they would be moving to an offsite classified location to which government/military staff could evacuate for continuity of operations purposes if necessary.? One of his co-workers answered because my husband had left to go take his daily walk to get a snack (which took him right through the part of the Pentagon impacted by American Airlines Flight 77). I was told that, no, the staff would not be going anywhere……yet. There really was no sense of concern in this co-worker’s voice whatsoever. None. I heard a co-worker from down the hall race out quickly at that point because her mother worked at the World Trade Center and was unreachable.?

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The Lockheed Martin office space in which I worked had amazing views of the local area. One whole side of the building overlooked the Pentagon and from another side we could see The Washington Monument. Whenever we had candidates in for their job interviews, we would often see them behind our reception area standing by the windows enjoying the views.? My office was windowless in the inner part of our space, but it was just a push back of my chair and a couple strides across the hall to get into our college recruiting team’s office, which had a “dead ahead” view of the Pentagon. After hanging up from my call to’s office, I walked across the hall to stand by the windows and observe what was going at the Pentagon.? A co-worker, Todd, and I stood there for probably 10-15 minutes watching and chatting about what we were hearing. I had heard discussion on the radio that the events were “an attack on America”. As I noticed what appeared to be an increase of activity across the way (helicopter activity that seemed different) I commented, “If this were an attack on America, don’t you think they would come here?” Little did I know at that moment.?

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Having work to do I went back to my desk. Mere moments later, though I heard commotion from across the hall. I pushed my chair back and was not halfway across the hall when I saw a massive explosion, a huge fireball, and the thickest, blackest smoke I’ve ever seen. Needing to verify what I was seeing, “Is that the Pentagon?”, I asked. From what I was told later in week by others who were around me, I screamed in a way they had never heard a person scream before.? My brain froze. I couldn’t process what I was seeing and had no idea where my husband was in the building. The fear, my god…the fear.? Knowing?my husband worked at the Pentagon, my office mates whisked me back into my office to get me away from the windows. My co-worker who had left because she couldn’t reach her at the WTC saw the Pentagon explode in her rearview mirror as she passed it on the GW Parkway.?

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My manager, Robert, suddenly was standing in front of me. “Karen, what’s your husband’s phone number? My brain was frozen. I couldn’t reply. Again, “Karen, what’s his number?” I stared blankly and still could not respond. On his third attempt, Robert put his hands on either side of my face, jostled me a bit and asked again, “WHAT’S HIS PHONE NUMBER?” Attempt number three successful, Robert dialed my husband’s phone number. I don’t know who else was in the room, but I was aware there were multiple people waiting to see what the outcome of the call would be. My husband answered not fully aware of what had happened being on another side of the building but said he had walked through the impacted section just about 10-15 minutes earlier. He called back moments later to say they were evacuating the building and would call again as soon as he was able. At about the same time, our Director ran down the hallway telling everyone to leave. And we did. On the way down the elevator, we could smell smoke mixed with the odor of jet fuel blowing over from the other side of the highway.

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My 7-month pregnant belly and I joined a co-worker in his car along with our new receptionist and another teammate we picked up on the street while underway. What should have taken about 25-30 minutes on the HOV lanes took us 5 hours. We spent 4 1/2?of those hours driving three miles to an accessible 395 onramp. As we sat in motionless traffic, we saw ash floating down from the sky; heard the cacophony of non-stop sirens; constantly flashing emergency lights, military jets flying so low you could see what appeared to be weapons loaded; we watched Pentagon employees with singed clothing make their way across into Crystal City;?and the smell. We couldn’t get away from that smell nor escape the fear of the unknown of what might happen next as we moved at snail’s pace. My co-worker’s father-on-law was a civilian working for the Army and whose office was at the Pentagon. For a long time, we didn’t know his fate. Several hours into the drive, we learned his father-in-law was alive, but had lost most, if not all, of his staff. The only bit of humor along the way was our need to find a bathroom. I had a baby that was pressing on my bladder and My co-worker had been drinking water all morning. We were getting rather desperate! We found one, but it wasn’t public, so I had to point to my belly and beg and plead. By the time we made it back to our neighborhood area, it was mid-afternoon. I picked up my 5-year-old and 2 ? year old from day care, went home, and it wasn’t until then I was able to see all that had transpired earlier in the day. I didn’t hear from my husband again until almost midnight and didn’t see him again until sometime the next morning.

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That day. For those who were directly impacted on the planes, in the Twin Towers, or at the Pentagon what made a difference was being early or being late; a flight taken or a flight changed; a commuter train being late; a meeting being onsite vs. offsite; going left instead of going right or vice versa; a slightly altered schedule; a decision made to stay or to leave; a decision made to stop to help someone; or in My husband’s case, a daily doughnut walk timed a bit earlier than normal that morning. All those things made a difference in the experience and outcome people had. It seems so random and is very hard to understand. None of these people, at least not those on the planes nor those in the Twin Towers, signed up to be on the very front lines of a war. Yet they were. So were their families. Why? The senselessness of it all. I’ll never being able to wrap my head around it. Our family was lucky. My girls were able to grow up with their Daddy — our youngest was able to know her Daddy, but thousands of lives were taken and thousands of lives were forever changed. The heart and soul of our nation was scarred and life as we knew it in the U.S. was replaced with the reality that things that happen “over there” could indeed happen here.?

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I’ve read and watched a great deal about 9/11.? The reason I feel compelled to read or watch as much as I do escapes me, to be honest. I can’t explain it. Maybe I’m trying to still make sense of what happened. If so, it’s not likely I’ll ever be successful. Maybe I just need to make sure I never forget the details of what happened that day and the stories that came out of it. Collectively as a nation it’s important that we don’t forget so that we can work together to make sure it never happens again, although I fear that it will. When it does, we need to be as unified against the threat as we were back then. The current divisiveness that exists in the U.S. right now concerns me deeply.?

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I hope the generation that has grown up in the shadow of 9/11 will take the time to learn and study how events that day changed the trajectory of this nation. Knowing how life and time works, however, I’m acutely aware the 9/11 generation is dealing with its own omnipresent issues and that to them 9/11 will be an important date in U.S. history, but without the emotional ties to it that those of us who lived it do.? What I hope will resonate always, though, is how blessed we are to live in this wonderful country and that there are adversaries out there intent on destroying our way of life and the freedoms we enjoy. We need you, 9/11 Generation, to be as unified as we were in the aftermath of that day and to remain steadfast against the ongoing threat.?

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When I see the various “9/11 Never Forget” memorial photos throughout the day today, I can — without a doubt — say that I will indeed never forget. I can also say that I’m grateful and honored to work for a company that works hard every day to keep our nation secure and prevent another day like 9/11 from ever happening again.

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