My father was in the military for what he referred to as 31 years of combined service. I guess I never really appreciated what "combined service" meant, since as long as I could remember, he was in the Air Force.
He spent the early part of that Air Force career on the flight line, loading planes. But by the time I came along, he had moved into administrative positions. He left home virtually every morning, came back virtually every night and wore a uniform like everyone else on our block. Basically, like he'd done most of his adult life.
I knew he had been in the Navy during World War II, but while he was easy going and friendly and a pretty good story-teller, he never really mentioned much about that part of "combined service." He did joke that he'd joined the Air Force before the Korean War because he was afraid he was going to be recalled onto a ship and didn't want to be separated from his family. Of course, he was sent on "unaccompanied duty" to Greenland and Guam during his first year.
Apparently the same folks who thought that was a good idea were still around to send us from Puerto Rico to Michigan a few years later. And people say the military doesn't have a sense of humor.
So he didn't talk about his time in the Navy. He didn't mention that, when he arrived on Guam with the Air Force, it wasn't the first time he'd been there. That he'd been on a destroyer that was part of the task force that invaded the island. That his ship had been among the craft that directed their search lights into the sky to guide Naval aviators back as darkness fell during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, despite the fact that, if our pilots could see them, the Japanese could see them, too.
When the war came up, he generally joked about his crucial duty dumping garbage over the side of ship. My mother later explained to me that he didn't hear very well because of the anti-aircraft gun he fired. When I asked him about it, he just smiled a little and said "you'll be surprised what people are capable of when they have to be." Then he changed the subject.
Fourteen years ago today I was in an office in Springdale watching two great buildings collapse and the world change forever. The events of the day are as hazy as a nightmare, as clear as a photograph. I remember the anger, the fear, the anxiety over what might come next. I remember the lines at gas stations and the photos of dust-covered people walking zombie-like down the streets of New York.
And I remember the stories, of office workers sacrificing themselves to save their fellow workers, or people they didn't even know. Of policemen and fireman rushing into the buildings as others rushed out, and being there in the end when the towers fell and buried them, all together.
I'm not sure those of us old enough to remember those events have ever adequately recovered. Yes, it's been years and much has happened. Most of the people involved with those attacks have come to understand the lengths to which this nation will go to see justice done. In many ways, we have moved on.
Even now, though, I become uneasy during movies that show mass destruction of buildings. And I don't think I'm alone. For those of us who lived through those days and feared for our nation and our children, it will always be too soon.
But those of us who lived through those days will also remember the heroes. We'll understand how they went to work that morning, and how some of them never came back. And later, how other heroes left their families and went overseas to try to make sure nothing like 9/11 ever happens again. And how those who were lucky came back and tried to get on with their lives.
How now they coach their kids' football teams and cook meals and mow their lawns and go about their business. And when asked, maybe they talk about it. And maybe they don't. Just like those men and women who lived on my block. Just like my dad.
Because you'll be surprised what people are capable of when they have to be.
Commentary on 09/11/2015