cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
I remember that it was a perfect morning; a soft breeze, a low sun rising behind me as I drove west, just a few clouds dotting a clear blue sky. I pulled into the school parking lot, ambled into my room, set up the coffee maker, checked my schedule and set out some books I wanted to work with, then headed across the lot to the office.
I was stunned to see our seventy-something secretary standing on a chair and stretching up on tip toes to change the channel on the TV. "Did you hear?" she asked, "One of our aircraft carriers rammed the Twin Towers."
Good with kids and always ready to help a teacher, I forgave her lack of knowledge of things nautical -- it would be tough to get a super carrier that far up the Hudson and even more difficult to turn one so that it would ram the Towers. Perhaps she meant that a jet from a carrier had crashed into a tower, maybe a flame out, maybe a pilot had bailed out and the plane had turned inland. I remembered the B-25 that had crashed into the fog shrouded Empire State Building during the last days of World War II. Maybe history was repeating itself.
A picture formed up on the screen, the iconic towers rising above the Manhatten skyline, a plume of gray smoke rising from one. Greg Gumble's voice was rumbling, "You can see that something has happened, the smoke, and the gash in the side of the building. We've heard a rumor that it was an airplane, maybe a civilian pilot lost control. If you saw what happened call our newsroom."
I stared at the TV for a few seconds, my mind too numb to realize that this was a tragedy, that beneath that rising column of smoke would be people struggling to survive, frightened to the point of panic. I drifted off to pick up my mail, check for messages, grab a donut and a cup of coffee. Gumble was still dealing with the aerial picture and now he had someone on a cell phone close to the scene, "I'm taking my usual walk to work, along Avenue of the Americas, and I hear this thing roaring along and I look up and this jet flew by, so low I could see the windows, and I wondered what was going on; was he having engine trouble? Was he lost? 'Cause I knew they weren't supposed to be that low, I mean, he was almost between some of the taller buildings."
"What kind of a plane was it? A commercial liner, a small civilian jet."
"It was a commercial jet. I don't know my airplanes, it was like one of those you see when you go to the airport."
Coming back to the TV, my mind began to realize that this was an important story. Other teachers began to gather and we all stood there, like visitors to an art museum, gazing and wondering what it all meant. Gumble and others pondered about the cause, pilot error? Malfunction? Auto pilot run amok? Attack? The debate, based on nothing more than conjecture, wobbled back and forth between malfunction and pilot error, though how a pilot could make such an enormous error was beyond anyone's reasoning.
"I mean, how could you not see you were flying too low over the city?" asked one of my colleagues. We were now as engaged in the story and the picture as the people on TV. Gumble reported that NBC News had no word from Kennedy or Newark or the FAA and so we teachers and a fast gathering audience across the nation sat and stared as the camera in the news chopper continued to circle the smoking building.
Then it happened, just as we were about to leave the story and return to our classrooms, the camera racked back from a tight shot. The city began to emerge around the towers, there was the perfect morning sky and sun shimmering in the waters of the river, dots of traffic moving along the canyoned streets, and in the air a big jet made a slow, majestic turn from west bound to east.
"There's the answer!" shouted Gumble, "He's aiming right for the Towers! This is an attack!"
The story fell into place just that quickly. For a few agonizing moments the South Tower stood helpless, the jet made a few minor adjustments and then seemed to gain speed, slamming into the building, a ball of flame shooting forward and blowing out the sides of at least two floors. A shriek reverberated around the office and library as we all felt the terror of those in the building. Staring in disbelief we began to respond, "What do we tell the kids?"
"Do you know anyone in New York? In Manhatten? In the Towers?"
"Who would do such a thing?"
The principal called a meeting, "Keep the TVs off. No point in traumatizing the kids. We'll go on as if nothing happened. Shirley and Carol will call parents and they can make the decision to come and pick up their child or wait and meet them after school. We'll leave it up to them to tell their child what happened."
I moved off, back across the parking lot, and into my isolated room. I'd disagreed with the decision to silence. What better place to watch the story unfold? Were we not there to teach children about the world they lived in, good and bad? Weren't we trained to reason matters out, to reassure, to gather facts? How were we going to keep the news of a story like this hidden?
Busses began arriving and the kids poured out the doors the way they always did. They had probably been standing on curbs, waiting their pick up, as the story unfolded. Cars and vans pulled into the lot, surely the story had been heard and would begin to spread like a virus.
I was wrong. I don't know what adults -- parents -- listen to, but for many of them it sure as hell ain't the news. All day long the story remained hidden, even as parents arrived and took their child home, the others suspected nothing.
The situation was different among the faculty. Each teacher on break became our link to the ongoing story, updates filtered out slowly by word of mouth until lunch break when we could all gather for a few minutes by the faculty room TV, the volume kept deliberately low to deny the news to curious ears outside.
My first reaction had been indifference, it was New York. Cincinnati could take a hit from an atomic bomb and the national news would barely register, but have a subway strike in the Big Apple and the nightly news would micro-focus on the issue. I resented the city.
The second hit lifted me above that narrow vision and I could share the terror. Now, as the day wore on my thoughts drifted to the connections I held with New York, a Vietnam buddy was a psychologist there. Did he have an office near the Towers? Another army buddy worked for Sports Illustrated, how close was that to the Towers? Ned! My God, my nephew Ned worked right across the street from the Towers, was he OK? Then came news of the attack on the Pentagon. The husband of a niece, Chip, was stationed at the Guard Bureau. An aerial shot came on the screen and I could begin to figure out where the building had been hit. Chip would have been on the opposite side. Then it sank in, the gapping hole was right in line with the B ring office where I had gone once a month during Desert Storm to get paid. It was not beyond reason that someone who had helped me with my pay had been caught in the maelstrom.
The connections kept mounting throughout the day and for the next few days. A student was in trauma. His dad had reported to the Pentagon a week earlier and now Kevin was frightened, was his dad dead? The psychologist who worked with me spent more than hour talking with Kevin, reassuring and calming him. A friend had a business call in the Towers that morning. Fortunately the appointment was at ten, but now he couldn?t get out of the city.
On and on, the stories gathered and I came to realize just how interconnected we are with New York City on a daily basis, something I'd never allowed myself to consider.
The military call ups were announced a few days later. That hit home. I'd served four years of active duty and another 26 years 'on call' in the reserves. I'd spent my final ten years assigned to the Emergency Operations Center of Army Material Command. If this had been prior to 1997 I'd have been called within hours of the attack, given a two or three days to pack up greens and BDUs, and sent off to Arlington, Virginia. I picked up the phone and called my old office, could they use me again? They could, but I'd have to go through my former personnel officer in St. Louis.
"Sorry," said the major in Missouri, "but you're 7 I"
"Seven I? What's that?" I asked.
"Well you remember 4 A?"
"Sure, 4 A, unfit for duty."
"Right, well you're 7 I."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that when the Al Queda gets to Seventh and I in DC we'll call you old guys up."
I laughed along with him, but it hurt. If I was needed I wanted to serve and I knew a good deal about how to move material through the pipeline, how to work the command structure, how to brief general officers, all skills that would be of use. It was a lonely feeling, a final coming to grips with the fact that I was old by military standards. I longed to be that young lieutenant again.
I watched as the nation grieved, as it grew angry, as flags appeared on houses, on cars and trucks and as reserve and guard friends were sent off to this new war. I listened as stories emerged; close calls, tragic endings, confusion, relief, sorrow -- the moment was lived and re-lived and then set aside.
Like my own war of forty years ago, this one is slowly drifting out of our daily thoughts. With less that 1% of all American families containing someone serving in our forces and with no asking the rest of us to sacrifice anything it's hard to imagine that we are at war and that there are serious consequences to be paid no matter how it turns out. We borrow money from China to keep from paying the tax price of our actions. We refuse to cut back on our lifestyle. No one is beating down the doors at the recruiting centers. Just slap another yellow ribbon on the ass end of your car and feel like you did something for the troops and the country.
I look at the college students in my current classroom and see how distant they are from the war, how few of them even know it is going on, fewer still who have an inkling as to why. But ask them about Brad or Paris... It's discouraging. I talk to a few of the new vets that show up in my classes and I see the same disbelief I experienced when I returned to "The World." I hear the same wish to go back to where things mattered that I felt at the same time I was mustering out. I worry that in the next few years another president will stand before the American public and tell them to put the war behind them and get on with life.
I was stunned to see our seventy-something secretary standing on a chair and stretching up on tip toes to change the channel on the TV. "Did you hear?" she asked, "One of our aircraft carriers rammed the Twin Towers."
Good with kids and always ready to help a teacher, I forgave her lack of knowledge of things nautical -- it would be tough to get a super carrier that far up the Hudson and even more difficult to turn one so that it would ram the Towers. Perhaps she meant that a jet from a carrier had crashed into a tower, maybe a flame out, maybe a pilot had bailed out and the plane had turned inland. I remembered the B-25 that had crashed into the fog shrouded Empire State Building during the last days of World War II. Maybe history was repeating itself.
A picture formed up on the screen, the iconic towers rising above the Manhatten skyline, a plume of gray smoke rising from one. Greg Gumble's voice was rumbling, "You can see that something has happened, the smoke, and the gash in the side of the building. We've heard a rumor that it was an airplane, maybe a civilian pilot lost control. If you saw what happened call our newsroom."
I stared at the TV for a few seconds, my mind too numb to realize that this was a tragedy, that beneath that rising column of smoke would be people struggling to survive, frightened to the point of panic. I drifted off to pick up my mail, check for messages, grab a donut and a cup of coffee. Gumble was still dealing with the aerial picture and now he had someone on a cell phone close to the scene, "I'm taking my usual walk to work, along Avenue of the Americas, and I hear this thing roaring along and I look up and this jet flew by, so low I could see the windows, and I wondered what was going on; was he having engine trouble? Was he lost? 'Cause I knew they weren't supposed to be that low, I mean, he was almost between some of the taller buildings."
"What kind of a plane was it? A commercial liner, a small civilian jet."
"It was a commercial jet. I don't know my airplanes, it was like one of those you see when you go to the airport."
Coming back to the TV, my mind began to realize that this was an important story. Other teachers began to gather and we all stood there, like visitors to an art museum, gazing and wondering what it all meant. Gumble and others pondered about the cause, pilot error? Malfunction? Auto pilot run amok? Attack? The debate, based on nothing more than conjecture, wobbled back and forth between malfunction and pilot error, though how a pilot could make such an enormous error was beyond anyone's reasoning.
"I mean, how could you not see you were flying too low over the city?" asked one of my colleagues. We were now as engaged in the story and the picture as the people on TV. Gumble reported that NBC News had no word from Kennedy or Newark or the FAA and so we teachers and a fast gathering audience across the nation sat and stared as the camera in the news chopper continued to circle the smoking building.
Then it happened, just as we were about to leave the story and return to our classrooms, the camera racked back from a tight shot. The city began to emerge around the towers, there was the perfect morning sky and sun shimmering in the waters of the river, dots of traffic moving along the canyoned streets, and in the air a big jet made a slow, majestic turn from west bound to east.
"There's the answer!" shouted Gumble, "He's aiming right for the Towers! This is an attack!"
The story fell into place just that quickly. For a few agonizing moments the South Tower stood helpless, the jet made a few minor adjustments and then seemed to gain speed, slamming into the building, a ball of flame shooting forward and blowing out the sides of at least two floors. A shriek reverberated around the office and library as we all felt the terror of those in the building. Staring in disbelief we began to respond, "What do we tell the kids?"
"Do you know anyone in New York? In Manhatten? In the Towers?"
"Who would do such a thing?"
The principal called a meeting, "Keep the TVs off. No point in traumatizing the kids. We'll go on as if nothing happened. Shirley and Carol will call parents and they can make the decision to come and pick up their child or wait and meet them after school. We'll leave it up to them to tell their child what happened."
I moved off, back across the parking lot, and into my isolated room. I'd disagreed with the decision to silence. What better place to watch the story unfold? Were we not there to teach children about the world they lived in, good and bad? Weren't we trained to reason matters out, to reassure, to gather facts? How were we going to keep the news of a story like this hidden?
Busses began arriving and the kids poured out the doors the way they always did. They had probably been standing on curbs, waiting their pick up, as the story unfolded. Cars and vans pulled into the lot, surely the story had been heard and would begin to spread like a virus.
I was wrong. I don't know what adults -- parents -- listen to, but for many of them it sure as hell ain't the news. All day long the story remained hidden, even as parents arrived and took their child home, the others suspected nothing.
The situation was different among the faculty. Each teacher on break became our link to the ongoing story, updates filtered out slowly by word of mouth until lunch break when we could all gather for a few minutes by the faculty room TV, the volume kept deliberately low to deny the news to curious ears outside.
My first reaction had been indifference, it was New York. Cincinnati could take a hit from an atomic bomb and the national news would barely register, but have a subway strike in the Big Apple and the nightly news would micro-focus on the issue. I resented the city.
The second hit lifted me above that narrow vision and I could share the terror. Now, as the day wore on my thoughts drifted to the connections I held with New York, a Vietnam buddy was a psychologist there. Did he have an office near the Towers? Another army buddy worked for Sports Illustrated, how close was that to the Towers? Ned! My God, my nephew Ned worked right across the street from the Towers, was he OK? Then came news of the attack on the Pentagon. The husband of a niece, Chip, was stationed at the Guard Bureau. An aerial shot came on the screen and I could begin to figure out where the building had been hit. Chip would have been on the opposite side. Then it sank in, the gapping hole was right in line with the B ring office where I had gone once a month during Desert Storm to get paid. It was not beyond reason that someone who had helped me with my pay had been caught in the maelstrom.
The connections kept mounting throughout the day and for the next few days. A student was in trauma. His dad had reported to the Pentagon a week earlier and now Kevin was frightened, was his dad dead? The psychologist who worked with me spent more than hour talking with Kevin, reassuring and calming him. A friend had a business call in the Towers that morning. Fortunately the appointment was at ten, but now he couldn?t get out of the city.
On and on, the stories gathered and I came to realize just how interconnected we are with New York City on a daily basis, something I'd never allowed myself to consider.
The military call ups were announced a few days later. That hit home. I'd served four years of active duty and another 26 years 'on call' in the reserves. I'd spent my final ten years assigned to the Emergency Operations Center of Army Material Command. If this had been prior to 1997 I'd have been called within hours of the attack, given a two or three days to pack up greens and BDUs, and sent off to Arlington, Virginia. I picked up the phone and called my old office, could they use me again? They could, but I'd have to go through my former personnel officer in St. Louis.
"Sorry," said the major in Missouri, "but you're 7 I"
"Seven I? What's that?" I asked.
"Well you remember 4 A?"
"Sure, 4 A, unfit for duty."
"Right, well you're 7 I."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that when the Al Queda gets to Seventh and I in DC we'll call you old guys up."
I laughed along with him, but it hurt. If I was needed I wanted to serve and I knew a good deal about how to move material through the pipeline, how to work the command structure, how to brief general officers, all skills that would be of use. It was a lonely feeling, a final coming to grips with the fact that I was old by military standards. I longed to be that young lieutenant again.
I watched as the nation grieved, as it grew angry, as flags appeared on houses, on cars and trucks and as reserve and guard friends were sent off to this new war. I listened as stories emerged; close calls, tragic endings, confusion, relief, sorrow -- the moment was lived and re-lived and then set aside.
Like my own war of forty years ago, this one is slowly drifting out of our daily thoughts. With less that 1% of all American families containing someone serving in our forces and with no asking the rest of us to sacrifice anything it's hard to imagine that we are at war and that there are serious consequences to be paid no matter how it turns out. We borrow money from China to keep from paying the tax price of our actions. We refuse to cut back on our lifestyle. No one is beating down the doors at the recruiting centers. Just slap another yellow ribbon on the ass end of your car and feel like you did something for the troops and the country.
I look at the college students in my current classroom and see how distant they are from the war, how few of them even know it is going on, fewer still who have an inkling as to why. But ask them about Brad or Paris... It's discouraging. I talk to a few of the new vets that show up in my classes and I see the same disbelief I experienced when I returned to "The World." I hear the same wish to go back to where things mattered that I felt at the same time I was mustering out. I worry that in the next few years another president will stand before the American public and tell them to put the war behind them and get on with life.
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