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Monday, September 10, 2001. The beginning of the work week for most of America, we shook off the weekend like a pair of old shoes and headed back to the grindstone. Mondays were always busy then for me, the guys would be working to finish up all the maintenance done last week so the owners could pick up their aircraft to depart for parts unknown. Lots of people with kids going to Wake Forest, WSSU, High Point University, etc. would fly into KINT for the weekend, and as football season had just kicked off there was lots hopping at the airport. That would change in a little over 24 hours.
The only personal experience I have with someone closely connected to the events at the Pentagon were from a high school graduation speech in 2005. Frank Huffman spoke at the high school he attended. Same one I graduated from 25 years before. He had a powerful story, which I'll try to capture for you all.
Frank drove his longtime girlfriend Sandy Teague to the airport that morning, on her way to a much needed vacation in Hawaii. They had planned to go together, but as a JAG officer who had just taken on a new assignment he had to cancel. It would be a perfect honeymoon spot later on, they said, as they discussed taking their relationship to the next level. He then reported to his office in a USN building adjacent to the Pentagon. Other than the extra trip to the airport, it was just another Monday. Until 9:37 am.
That's when American Airlines Flight 77 came crashing into the five-sided home of the Department of Defense. As the sirens sounded and every available man and woman rushed to the Pentagon to do what they could to help those trapped inside, Frank joined them. He helped search the building for people he knew that were trapped in their offices, behind doors that were jammed and took several men to break down. In the chaos on the ground, Frank rushed to help. He knew people in the building, and was frantic to help. They were his coworkers, people he worked with daily.
What Frank didn't find out until after noon that day, what news took him to his knees, what horrible fact came to light from a rescue worker giving them updates on what had went on with the attacks? The airline and the flight number. You see, Flight 77 was Sandy's flight. Dulles to Los Angeles to Honolulu. While he was working to free the people trapped inside the Pentagon, the woman he had planned to spend his life with was in the wreckage. And but for his new assignment as a liaison to Vietnam to assist in recovering and identifying MIA and POW remains, he would have been beside her.
Cold chills yet? I had them, that early June day, even in the auditorium packed with parents and graduates.
Frank paused during his story, had a drink of water from a bottle under the podium, then continued. He told of how he and Sandy's family had struggled with the loss. He in particular, since he was THISCLOSE to her and didn't know it. And could have been seated next to her, without what must've been divine intervention.
He finished his speech with a call to the graduates to consider military service. Forget about college, go see the world, learn some skills, show you are proud to be an American. He talked about his Navy fighter pilot friends that painted a pinup girl named Sandy on the nose of their aircraft, in her memory. The same aircraft using in bomb runs just a year after the attack, taking vengeance on the ideology that prompted them.
At that point, the audience was..... dead quiet. Not a peep. I imagined they were not thrilled he had just asked their kids and grand kids to go fight a war where they might too pay that ultimate price. Me? I was proud as hell, and stood up and cheered him. So did Dave. Then another guy stood up. Then another. Before it was done, there were a couple hundred of the thousand or so standing in appreciation for this man's service and for the sacrifice. The sacrifice Sandy made, unwittingly. The same price thousands more paid that same day. Simply because they were Americans.
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so.....sad :(
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