How We Missed 9/11

After being married for all of 10 days, I sat in an Army Community Service job placement office on post in Wurzburg, Germany. Still on honeymoon leave, my new husband, Jason, was sitting in a barber chair several hundred meters away, waiting for me to finish my appointment.

It's funny that these seemingly mundane activities will live burned in our collective memory, but that's how tragic stories are recalled; someone always says, "I remember it being a beautiful day...," and for us, the newlyweds, new to the military and living in a foreign country, it was.

"I joined the army thinking I would do a peacekeeping mission in the Balkans because that was the only real world experience you were going to get in the army at the time," Jason said. "You expected to see the world, travel, and have an adventure living in a foreign country."

Jason was a second lieutenant, in the army for a little less than a year, assigned as an intelligence officer in the 1st Infantry Division Headquarters, and the most junior officer on the headquarters staff. Though still on leave for our wedding, Jason was expected to join the rest of the staff at a command post exercise in Grafenwoehr, Germany, in two days, and was trying to get his new wife settled as quickly as possible.

On the barber shop TV, Jason saw the first tower burning, and then watched as a second plane hit the World Trade Center.

"I told the barber, 'I need to go right now,'" Jason recalled. "For some reason, I knew at that point that we were under attack, and I felt that we had to get Keri off this post, now. I don't know why I reacted like that. I cant explain it."

Back at my appointment, my career counselor's phone rang; on the other end was her husband, and whatever he said made her stand up and grab her purse to leave. Seconds later, Jason appeared and whisked me away; he had an urgency to get me off post immediately. The post was going to be locked down, and we didn't want to be stuck there.

Once at home, we watched the image of the burning towers, and tried to keep up with the confusing stories of additional attacks.

"After the second tower came down, I felt like I had to do something, so I went back," Jason said. "I parked off post and walked in; no one was allowed on post with a vehicle."

Force Protection Level Delta meant only soldiers, rather than contracted security, would be guarding the gates of U.S. installations. Not only armed soldiers, but most posts also had M1A2 Abrams tanks with M1A1 Bradley Fighting Vehicles with live ammunition parked outside of each gate. For the first time in decades, tanks rolled through the streets of Germany with live ammunition.

For me, what followed was hours, or maybe days of watching the combined network coverage offered by the Armed Forces Network. The post was on high alert and Jason came and went for hours at a time to assist the division staff and pick up the occasional loaf of bread or gallon of milk for fellow families living or locked off post. While American families stateside reached out to one another for comfort, I sat as an outside observer watching my country in crisis from 3,928 miles away.

Jason returned to a deserted office. The only officer there was the Division Intelligence Officer and the Division Commanding General.

Jason recalled, "For the next 10 hours I ran messages between the the two senior officers, who were deciding what force protection measures  were needed to secure the troops and their families. It was the only time I walked inside the general's office while on his staff." Jason sat in on a video conference between all of the EUCOM commanders, who were assessing what the forced protection posture was and what steps were being take to secure the facilities.

The next day, Jason was sent a few hundred miles away to join the exercise. "Everyone in the field kept sharing stories about how quickly their division was deployed when the decision was made to take action in Bosnia three years prior. Soldiers recounted their field exercise ending early, and getting on a plane to Bosnia a few days later," said Jason. "So after the attacks, the common question on everyone's minds was, 'So where are they sending us? And how soon?'"

With Jason in the field, and without a driver's license or even the ability to get onto post, I had no reason to leave the tiny apartment or the constant news streaming from my four-channel satellite TV. The days of shocking and depressing news quickly got to me, and I eventually turned it off, just needing a break.

It was then that I heard a sad, beautiful sound. My downstairs neighbor, a German professional cellist, was practicing. The sweet sound of "America the Beautiful" echoed through the floor boards. I sat in my quiet apartment and cried.

Bouquets of flowers lined the barricaded gates of the military post. While the German nationals reached out to their American neighbors, soldiers and families were instructed to be guarded, to live as discreetly as possible, not calling attention to the fact that we were Americans. Soldiers were not allowed to run during physical training off post, they could not eat off post while in uniform, and changed out of uniform prior to leaving post.

Those of us living in overseas military communities had to hide the fact that we were Americans, while at home America was being celebrated. During a visit back to the U.S. during the following spring, I first saw giant American flag car magnets on every car on the highway, one bigger than the next.

Through patriotism, it seemed that American was healing, but we hadn't really been given a chance. It would take us years longer to fully realize the impact that the Sept. 11 attacks had on the entire nation, and even while watching documentaries 10 years later, there are pieces to the story that I never knew.

It was a giant part of American culture and history, and and we weren't there, and therefore, it took longer for us to find the sense of closure that Americans at home already had.

While the 1st Infantry Division soldiers did not experience the quick deployment that they anticipated, on Sept. 12, the army had changed. 

"We were no longer a peace keeping force; we were now an army of a nation at war," Jason said.