Never Forget – Remembering Our Fallen Heroes on 9/11

Cindy Baker

On the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the U.S. I wanted to repost this.

I am going to take a risk here and stray from my usual peppy upbeat stories, but I hope you will bear with me. This one is more serious. I am currently a sixth-grade teacher, and I took some of my students outside today to place flags around the front of our school in remembrance of those who died in the horrific terrorist attack on September 11.

Where Were You on 9/11?

The attack was 18 years ago, yet every adult can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. My students had not been born yet that day. I remember where I was. I was living in Germany at the time. I was on the staff of a large youth outreach organization and was providing youth ministry to American students in grades 6 – 12 whose parents were stationed in the U.S. Army in Hohenfels, Germany. It was a little after 4:00 P.M. Germany time, and I was in my office on post listening to the only radio channel I could pick up in English: NPR. I heard the announcer describe the first plane crash, and I remember thinking, “Wow, that is so horrible!” But then the announcer seemed to be getting new information, and his usual neutral tone changed to alarm.

I couldn’t process what was happening.

When I heard about the second one, then the third crash at the Pentagon I felt shocked and confused like all of us did. I couldn’t really process what was happening. No one seemed to know exactly what was going on, and there were so many different reports coming in. Was it an accident? Was it on purpose? Was there a fire in the boiler room? I packed up and left my office to drive off the post to my apartment and saw one of my high school girls walking home from her job at the Burger King on the post. I picked her up and drove her home so that she wouldn’t have to walk so far and was still trying to make sense of what I had just heard. I told her about the news, and after a silent pause she said, “My dad works at the Pentagon.”

Reality Check…

That’s when it hit me. “This is real,” I thought. “This is really happening and will affect all of these dear U.S. military families I work with. Those people have names and faces and children.” Fortunately, her dad was not there at the time and was O.K. But life as we know it was changed forever that day.

Our New Normal

Back at home I turned on the T.V. to British CNN (the only channel I got in English) and watched in horror and disbelief as I saw live footage of people jumping from top floor windows and the chaos at Ground Zero after the towers collapsed. I called my Mom, and I felt so incredibly homesick for my parents and my country. I was alone and single living in a foreign country where I did not know the language, and my home country was under attack. I will never forget it. All flights were grounded. I could not go home even if I tried. Earlier tonight I saw a documentary on The History Channel with raw footage from eyewitnesses. Unbelievable! Over 3,000 innocent lives lost that day – many were the brave firefighters and emergency responders who were trying to rescue others.

Will We Ever Feel Safe Again?

Everything was different from that day on. I was on the crisis team at the school and available for students who needed to talk about their feelings. Many of their moms and dads were being deployed to Afghanistan for war. It took hours to get on the post for several days after that. They had bomb-sniffing dogs and those long metal poles with mirrors on the end that they would put under your car to check for bombs. The Germans placed flowers all over the gate and fence outside the post to show their support.

Every Spring Break we took high school students along with some from other posts around Europe to the Czech Republic for an annual service project week. We would do things like build playgrounds for schools that had none or only had broken down gray metal ones from Communist days. We would build sturdy wooden ones and paint them bright colors. It is so valuable for children to learn how to take the focus off of themselves and serve others less fortunate. After the attack, all Americans overseas were considered “soft targets,” so the Army Command made us change the service project to smaller regional ones “inside the fence,” meaning on protected military posts.

I can remember feeling so anxious, because we did not know what would happen next. And we also felt anger. What makes them think they have the right to come into our country and kill so many innocent people? Lots of children lost both mother and father that day. Every time we fly now we are reminded of 9/11 as we stand in the security line and the X-ray machine.

But what I told my students today is how great it was to see the strength of the American people and how we all came together as a nation. Today everyone is so divided politically and argue with each other over every opinion. But on 9/11 Americans were united. Democrat, Republican, Independent, every religion and race – it didn’t matter. We were one.

This is just my personal opinion. You are welcome to your own. But I feel angry when I see people using the flag for their own agenda and showing disrespect to those who gave their lives for our freedom. In my opinion the flag is not about race or politics. Those emergency workers who bravely went in to help others were of every race and religion and probably all had different political beliefs.

May We Never Forget!

I wanted my students to know why I thank our veterans for their service. I wanted them to know that this is not just something that happened a long time ago to people we don’t know. This affected all their teachers. Those were real people with families who loved them. I wanted them to know why I remember. May we never forget!