story1330.xml

story1330.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-20

I spent September 11, like most of America, glued to my TV and on the phone, watching with a sense of horror and disbelief as the terrible events unfolded. The only difference was that, unlike most of America, I live in Arlington, Virginia. I heard the plane crash into the Pentagon, had a steady siren soundtrack for hours on end as one emergency vehicle after another from every neighboring jurisdiction rushed by on the state road near my home, and saw a marked decrease in my water pressure due to the volume of water being used to try to put out the fire.

By mid-afternoon, burned out from the TV and the phone, I ventured outside and chatted with my Arlington neighbors. Gino, the old man Mayor of 17th Street, was holding court in someone's driveway. After remarking at how I had lost weight ("I can see it in your face"), he continued with a diatribe against the perpetrators he suspected were behind the day's awful crimes. "If I was President, I'd nuke 'em all. Iran, Iraq, the whole lot of ?em. Osama Bin whatever-his-name-is and the rest of them fanatics should be wiped out." He said that the plane that hit the Pentagon flew so close to his house, which is two doors down and across the street from mine, that things fell off his walls and shattered. As I hadn?t noticed any particularly low-flying aircraft, I decided to reserve judgment on this until the investigation determined the flight path. He also said that he was out directing traffic so that the ambulances could get through. Although I didn't see it, I have no doubt that he did and can clearly picture him out in the middle of the road leaning on his cane and barking orders. After more chit-chat, I told Gino to be sure to sign me up for his militia and bid him good-bye.

Now it was about 4, and I decided to wander up Columbia Pike to see how close I could get to the scene. As I looked up the street, I was surprised at how much smoke was still coming from the building. I was also surprised by the above-average numbers of pedestrians and bicyclists, even though I should have expected that others, like me, would want to be a witness to history.

I walked as far as Washington Blvd., which is the road that everyone takes who leaves my house heading north, swinging past the Pentagon toward home. They were stopping cars at this point, but I saw people walking toward me on foot and others on bikes, so I knew it was possible to go farther.

Just as I was about to pass the vehicle checkpoint, a man who wore a brown "Sheriff" T-shirt and inexplicably had an Australian accent stopped me to ask whether I lived up that way or was "just sightseeing." I sort of resented his characterizing it as if I were going to have a picnic while the Pentagon burned, but I admitted that I lived about a mile back in the other direction. He told me that only people who lived up that way were permitted to go further. I knew it would do no good to point out that if I had only crossed the street and gone up the Pike on the opposite sidewalk, I would have been able to get past him just like the rest of the people strolling and biking toward the Pentagon. I also knew that, having already been identified, I couldn't just cross the street and continue heading east.

I instead climbed the hill by Washington Blvd., crossed over the exit ramp, walked down the road a bit, then exited at another ramp on the other side of Sheriff Aussie. I was able to go as far as the Virginia Department of Transportation Building, which apparently had been commandeered by the FBI terrorist unit, across from the Navy Annex. At this point they had Marines stationed to keep you from going any further.

Now when I say "Marines," I mean they were wearing Marine fatigues that had their names on them. But these Marines, a young man and young woman, looked like they should have been wearing McDonald's colors and taking my order for fries, so non-intimidating were they.

There was a group of people, numbering about 15 at any given point, chatting with each other and the Marine-ettes as we looked toward the smoldering Pentagon. I had thought to bring along my late mother's old binoculars, so I was quite popular with the group as I freely passed them around. The side of the building that had been hit was facing us, so with the binoculars we could clearly see the section that had collapsed.

The events of the day were, of course, the primary topic of conversation. I spent much of the time correcting the misinformation they were spreading among themselves. "No, it turns out that there wasn't a car bomb at the State Department. They retracted that story." "Well, actually, the second building that was hit collapsed before the first building hit did. I saw a diagram of it on TV." I also held forth with my ideas about why the World Trade Center imploded the way it did, based on the vast information I had garnered from watching the "Skyscraper" episode of the "Building Big" series on PBS. As we stood there, heavy digging machinery, porta-Johns, klieg lights, and telecommunication trucks passed by in a macabre large-scale search-and-rescue caravan.

After a half-hour of this, I was about to head back. A Marine, a real Marine, not one of the pretend ones, was talking with a couple standing near me. They were trying to convince the Marine that the woman might be useful, as she was a nurse and had experience with smoke-inhalation victims. The Marine, something-Sergeant McClellan, asked who was there to volunteer. Someone else asked, "You mean experienced medical workers, right?" Sergeant McClellan said, "No, I mean all sorts of volunteers," and he gave us a description of what he had in mind.

I think we were all surprised, since we hadn't heard any call for volunteers on TV. Seven of us advanced forward, including me. We got to move a little further up the street, a little closer to the Pentagon and beyond the reach of the Marine-ettes. Sergeant McClellan then reiterated the speech he had given us back at the checkpoint, but in just a little more hard-core version.

"You could be waiting around here for four hours before you're called to do something, so if you have kids at home, this probably isn't for you. Of course, I told the last group it would be four hours, and then I sent for them in a half-hour. But I can't tell you how long it will be. You will be doing what I tell you to do. Is that understood?" As we realized the gravity of the situation and the need for discipline, we all stood in silent assent.

"I saw someone earlier down there who was dressed in, well, I guess you'd call them his dress greens. He was spattered with blood all over his shirt and slacks. You have to realize that you'll be seeing things that made him look that way. There will be bodies. You may be carrying water to the rescue workers. You may be carrying bodies. You have to think if you can handle seeing this type of thing."

Could I handle seeing this type of thing? How the hell should I know? The only dead bodies I'd seen that weren't on TV were ones that had already been carefully coifed and made-up and were lying in a casket. Could I handle it? To me that really wasn't the issue. In my mind, the issue was, "Are you going to pass on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?" I looked down at my beige khaki shorts, buttoned shirt, and sandals, and tried to imagine them covered in dirt, sweat and blood. There was no way I was leaving.

All seven of us stayed. There were the nurse and what looked like her husband. There was a yuppie late 30-ish couple, he dressed in Ralph Lauren Polo shorts and she in New Balance running shoes. There was a 55-ish guy dressed in a Seventh Calvary T-shirt who had ridden his bike to the scene. Finally, there was a 5'-4" gentleman with a black moustache and a blue cap who appeared not to understand English very well and, if you had put us all in a line-up, would have been voted "Most Likely To Be an Illegal Alien."

I sat down and leaned against the fence, trying to conserve my energy for what might turn out to be a very long night. I thought about the credit card bill I had due and wondered if I would get back in time to pay it the next day. I wondered why the other volunteers were still standing and acting so nonchalant. Hadn't they just heard what they had volunteered for?

Eventually, I got up and joined one of the conversations. It was now about 5:30, though I thought it was more like 6:30 until somebody corrected me. I was in the middle of regaling the group with my tale of how I had sneaked past Sheriff Aussie when Sergeant McClellan came up and interrupted me. "Excuse me, sir." Of course, I piped down immediately. "I just got a call from Quantico. They are sending a bunch of people up who will be here shortly. It looks like we're not going to need you after all." He thanked us and made it a point to shake each of our hands individually. I wished him luck. Our stint as rescue workers was over, maybe 25 minutes after it began.

I headed west on Columbia Pike, looking back over my shoulder and thinking about what might have been. I stopped at the supermarket and picked up groceries in a fog, not the usual fog of routine, but something altogether different. I returned home and there was the American flag I had put out before I left. It was still in the sun. An hour before and one mile away, I had pictured it hanging in the dark most of the night.