nmah5348.xml
Title
nmah5348.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-12-28
NMAH Story: Story
The morning of September 11, 2001, I was at my job in the Bethesda Naval Hospital complex where I worked as a data quality department head for the Naval Medical Information Management Center. I was in the tower of the hospital which was built under FDR, visiting my colleague, a data quality manager for the National Naval Medical Center, LCDR Robert Doyle, with a senior colleague from the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. We were about to sit down to discuss a new program to revolutionize what we were doing based on LCDR Doyle's efforts. In our conference room, there was an old Zenith console color TV, 20", and LCDR Doyle turned it on to CNN. He, my colleague from BUMED, and I were all from New Jersey. LCDR said: "The World Trade center is on TV and it's burning. It was hit by a plane."
No one knew what was going on. I was brand new at my job in the Navy. We watched in horror, completely diverted from the task at hand, as the second airplane hit. My colleague from BUMED asked me, "Who do you think hit them?"
I said I guessed it was Bin Laden. I'd heard the good leader of the opposition in Afghanistan had been slain just a week earlier.
The meeting was cancelled. People asked me to use my cell phone to contact people during the crisis. Loved ones, family members. The first person I called was my friend who lived in Arlington that I knew from the Peace Corps in Africa. He was OK. He said he could hear the Pentagon get hit. He worked in downtown Arlington in Ballston for the BBB. I called my wife. She had just lost her job a week before and was at home. We waited anxiously for our boy to come home from school.
My colleague from BUMED took over my cell phone to call downtown Washington. We began to search work for bombs. Then, one of my employees drove me home. The metro might have gas in it, he said.
That employee retired less than four months following the incident.
He drove me to a Perkins restaurant where I waited for my wife to come out in our all wheel drive vehicle. That Perkins had a big flag flying from it. I just told him to drop me there because of the flag. I wanted to be near one.
My wife came out from our house a few minutes later and drove me home. We didn't live far from the interstate. We then just went out on our deck. It was a gorgeous day, warm and clear skiied, except for the Marine Two helicopter that passed overhead and the fighter planes that were scrambled making low flying runs and engines piercing the sky with their distinctive vapor trails.
I just fell asleep. The day was so quiet. That night, I sat around watching TV and staying in the house, and the next day, I went to work early. The skies overhead were criss crossed with vapor trails, and that morning, I developed a rash.
I had to be seen by a doctor a few days later. He was an old Greek American physician who gave me a course of prednisolone tablets for it. He said I was probably allergic to terror. "Now," he said,"America will have to learn to deal with the same kind of terror I grew up with in Greece."
No one knew what was going on. I was brand new at my job in the Navy. We watched in horror, completely diverted from the task at hand, as the second airplane hit. My colleague from BUMED asked me, "Who do you think hit them?"
I said I guessed it was Bin Laden. I'd heard the good leader of the opposition in Afghanistan had been slain just a week earlier.
The meeting was cancelled. People asked me to use my cell phone to contact people during the crisis. Loved ones, family members. The first person I called was my friend who lived in Arlington that I knew from the Peace Corps in Africa. He was OK. He said he could hear the Pentagon get hit. He worked in downtown Arlington in Ballston for the BBB. I called my wife. She had just lost her job a week before and was at home. We waited anxiously for our boy to come home from school.
My colleague from BUMED took over my cell phone to call downtown Washington. We began to search work for bombs. Then, one of my employees drove me home. The metro might have gas in it, he said.
That employee retired less than four months following the incident.
He drove me to a Perkins restaurant where I waited for my wife to come out in our all wheel drive vehicle. That Perkins had a big flag flying from it. I just told him to drop me there because of the flag. I wanted to be near one.
My wife came out from our house a few minutes later and drove me home. We didn't live far from the interstate. We then just went out on our deck. It was a gorgeous day, warm and clear skiied, except for the Marine Two helicopter that passed overhead and the fighter planes that were scrambled making low flying runs and engines piercing the sky with their distinctive vapor trails.
I just fell asleep. The day was so quiet. That night, I sat around watching TV and staying in the house, and the next day, I went to work early. The skies overhead were criss crossed with vapor trails, and that morning, I developed a rash.
I had to be seen by a doctor a few days later. He was an old Greek American physician who gave me a course of prednisolone tablets for it. He said I was probably allergic to terror. "Now," he said,"America will have to learn to deal with the same kind of terror I grew up with in Greece."
NMAH Story: Life Changed
Yes, I am much fatter and considerably more anxious.
NMAH Story: Remembered
How beautiful it was that so many Americans cared about their nation, flying the flags from anything that would hold it.
NMAH Story: Flag
Yes, considerably. They have deepened to where it comforts me almost as much as Christ's image.
Citation
“nmah5348.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed November 25, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/47153.