09/11/2021
It was 20 years ago, yet it still seems so fresh. Personally, I suffered no immediate loss that day, but like all of us, my heart was and is still broken. I was starting my freshman year at Georgetown when the girls in the dorm room next to ours, both from Manhattan, informed Rich and me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Together, we watched the terrible images on TV and later looked out our dorm windows in horror to see the Pentagon burning.
Classes hadn’t yet been cancelled, so I attended my morning Ethics class which was a somber staging room for grief. Walking back from that class, there was a roar overhead as F-16s from the District of Columbia’s ANG 113th Wing established combat air patrols over our nation’s capital. Seeing those fighters with pylons full of air-to-air missiles was both reassuring and disturbing.
I had joined the local fire department a few months before 9/11, and although I knew next to nothing about firefighting, I knew that horrible morning that many firefighters were dead. My college friends had many close to them that had mothers and fathers that were unaccounted for. We prayed together. In those moments, weeks, and months to come, I regretted not accepting my appointment to West Point. I was not there when my country needed me. I envied my role model and inspiration, Tim Moshier, who had answered the call and was currently at the Academy.
My friend Mason, who I shared a parking spot with in high school, was at the Air Force Academy. I envied him too. At one point Mason and I both drove and used a visitor’s spot at Bethlehem HS so we could attend our respective interviews for military service. For that transgression, we both received detention. I don’t think either of us were ever in detention before or since, but we were damn proud to be there that day. Mason went on to become a Navy SEAL serving throughout the Middle East. My only claim to fame is at one point I was in the brig (i.e., detention) with a SEAL.
Tim Moshier, my inspiration, never made it home from Iraq. His helicopter was shot down. His life was cut short. Our town lost other heroes, like Shawn Martin, in the years and wars that followed. Years later, while working at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, I met survivors of the 1998 terrorist bombing. Their citations for valor hung on their office walls. That attack is an often overlooked chapter in our nation’s battle with terrorism.
Every year more victims lose their lives to 9/11-related illness. To date, over 200 firefighters alone have died due to their time at Ground Zero. Each year, their names are added to the Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Albany. Each year I see the heartbreak coupled with pride in the faces of their families as they receive a flag honoring their loved ones’ service and sacrifice. Each year I am reminded that I both love and hate bagpipes.
Today, we remember 9/11 and everyone impacted by the horrible events that day. Honor those we lost by living each day with kindness and purpose and in service to others. That is the greatest tribute we can give.
Never forget.
