September 11th as an Anti-Terrorism Officer

Every day around the world, there are people whose only job is to protect Americans against terrorism. On September 11, 2001, I was one of them. Although you would never know by looking at my life today, this mom and homeschool teacher once spent her time protecting America against the bad guys. This is my story about the day the twin towers were attacked:

September in Italy

September 11, 2001 was a very quiet day. I was stationed in Italy as the Force Protection Assistant at Naval Support Activity Naples. August in Italy is a very quiet time, as all the Italians go on vacation. I suppose that somebody has to work in the hotel and tourism industry, but just about everybody else doesn't work. It's impossible to get your car towed in August, for example. The world basically stops. When September rolls around, people come back to their jobs, but it's still a little slow. On September 11, my boss, who ran the security department in Naples, was in America getting married. My friend Denise and I were basically in charge of everything security related. She was in charge of all of the military police; I was in charge of the people that run and build the security cameras and security infrastructure, military working dogs, and the pass and ID office (where you get a pass to come onto the base if you are not I the military). I also taught a class on how to protect yourself against a terrorist attack: it was a scary subject to some, but I tried to calm people's fears by letting them know that more people die from bathtub drownings than from terrorist attacks.

Because my boss was away, and because work hadn't really picked up from the August holiday, there wasn't really anything going on for most of September 11th. It was early afternoon; I was contemplating whether or not to go home on the early bus. Then one of the security guards ran through the hallway stating that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

Moving to Action

We all ran down to the Emergency Control Center, where CNN was broadcast for most of the day, and where all the big shots run the base during an emergency. My first thought was whether the plane hitting the building was an accident, or whether it was a terrorist. We were all down in ECC watching CNN when the second plane hit. At that point, we knew that it was terrorism.

All of the officers were called to a meeting in the Captain's office. The base was going to Force Protection Condition Delta, the highest condition of alert (something I had never seen before or since). As I was about to go to the Captain's office, we received word that the Pentagon was hit. I had a friend in the Pentagon, my former boss. We wouldn't find out for several days that he was okay. Rumors flew about another bombing at the Capitol (not true) and about a plane going down in Pennsylvania.

The next few days were a blur. I called my husband from the Captain's office to let him know the news; he was working at the Navy Exchange at the time. I didn't get home until after midnight that night, and we were back up to go to work at about 4 AM the next day. We set up barriers outside nearly every base where cars had to twist and turn around in order to prevent people from quickly driving a bomb-laden truck inside. Very few people were let on the base that didn't work there.

Although we only stayed in Force Protection Condition Delta for four or five days, most of my security officials worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, for the next several months. I didn't see the sun myself for weeks; I would come to work before sunrise and leave after it got dark. During that time, we had an influx of people coming in that were recalled from the reserves. Some had been firemen and police officers that helped comb through the rubble after the bombing. Eventually, people started to get back to their normal work weeks, although we remained vigilant.

Life Goes On

Some people joined the military after September 11th, 2001, but I would only stay in the military for a couple more years. I trained other people to teach about how to protect oneself from terrorism. More people still drown in the bathtub than die from terrorist attacks in an average year (although most of those people are under the age of five). I had two kids, taught in a day care for a while, and now I write and teach at home.

As someone who spent three years dedicated to terrorist protection, I know that there is no way to completely end terrorism. You can build a bomb as small as a can of Coke. However, I don't think that we need to live in fear. Take some protective measures, yes, but if we cower and turn into a police society, the terrorists have already won. I'm not afraid of my preschooler drowning in the bathtub, and I'm not afraid of the terrorists either.