It’s a little after 5 a.m. as I sit typing. Kevin is already in the car, on his way up to the Flight 93 Memorial in Stoystown, Pennsylvania. He’s going because he feels that he owes his life to the men & women on Flight 93 who downed the plane believed to be heading for the U.S. Capitol Building, where Kevin was working on September 11, 2001. Here’s the story, from my perspective. On that morning Kevin and I got up and headed to our respective jobs. Kevin was working for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence – deep in the U.S. Capitol Building. I had a cushy office on the 15th floor of an office building in Rosslyn, VA. My view was amazing and expansive, down the Potomac River, over the Pentagon towards National Airport. My job was news related, so I was on the Washington Post website when a banner came up stating that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Towers. I printed the page out and walked down the hall to pick it up. When I got back to my office, there was another alert – a second plane. I turned on my radio to listen to the news and heard an NPR reporter in the Pentagon announce that there was a report of smoke. I turned and looked out the window and saw a massive black plume just rising from a section of the building. I called Kevin – he picked up and I told him what I saw. I could hear shouting in the background and he said, “Nik, they think there’s another plane, they’re making us evacuate.” There was more shouting, “GO, GO, GO!” and he said goodbye. It was just after 9:30. I didn’t hear from him again for 14 hours. There were so many conflicting reports that day – A car bomb at the State Department, suspicious packages, more planes. Several colleagues and I watched both towers collapse on a TV in the CEO’s office. Fighter Jets were screaming overhead. Before noon, because of our proximity to the Pentagon, we were evacuated too. No transit was running, but I was lucky, I had sneakers and I walked the three miles home and turned on the TV. Kevin called around midnight – the Intel Committee had set up a secure remote office and Kevin and his colleagues had been manning the phones as Intelligence reports flew in. He came home very, very late that night and was up and out of the apartment again before 5. I didn’t see him much for the next few weeks. We learned about Flight 93 and its likely target, and we tried not to think about what might have happened. Thirteen years have passed and life moved on for us. We got a dog, got married, bought a home, had two beautiful children, but Kevin hasn’t forgotten. He can’t forget the smell in the air in New York, where he went to bear witness with Members of Congress shortly after the attacks. He can’t forget that 40 people died thwarting a strike on the building where he was working. Kevin feels like he owes a debt of service to the men and women who didn’t get to move on. It’s not something he feels comfortable talking about – and when September 11th is mentioned he tends to go quiet. He knows he can never fully repay them for their sacrifice, but he won’t stop trying - and he’ll never forget to be grateful.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 10:35:58 +0000
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