By Donna Hoffmeyer
(original post on Medium, Taking Off The Armor)
The question has been coming up on social media over the last few days, “Where were you on Sept 11, 2001?”
I was a flight nurse, stationed at Ramstein, Germany. The absolute best assignment of my career. It was going on 3 p.m. and all of us in the squadron were called to our TPMRC office. When I got there I saw on the TV the first tower smoking and reports of a plane hitting it.
My first thought was, “How can someone not see a massive skyscraper in front of them?” Moments later, the second tower was struck, and life as we knew it did not exist anymore. We were immediately put on alert for the next 48 hours. It was the most excruciating 48 hours for many of us. We were used to responding…not sitting and waiting. Almost a year prior it was our flight crews that recovered the Navy sailors on the USS Cole. Our country was calling again, and we could only sit and wait for the order.
We never got the order. We could only watch from afar and continue to do our mission, now with even more vigilance. We were ready, but the events unfolding were not in our world…they were back on our home soil.
A friend I met at Squadron Officer School, had just landed in Frankfurt and was on his dream European vacation he and his wife had been planning. He was stationed at the Pentagon. When I met them at the train station we looked at each other and knew his vacation was over before it ever started. I brought them directly to my office to call back.
We had a friend and prior aeromedical technician, that worked on the medical staff at the White House. No one had any idea what her status was. Eventually, we found out she was safe physically, but we could only imagine the mental trauma she was enduring.
The world was tipped up on its ear. Getting through the base gate took nearly 4 hours. In order for us to be able to continue our missions, we met security forces at a location outside the gate at some horribly early time and were escorted in.
Outside the gate, we were on edge. In Germany, there were sightings of unmarked white vans roaming through neighborhoods where it was known a large percentage of American forces resided. In England, Americans were targeted and run off the road in a game of chicken.
Civilian friends were asking me how this could happen. It was hard for them to understand that those in the military never saw it as an if, but only a when. Not because we were a weak country, but only because staying impervious forever is impossible.
The world forever changed that day. Security became paramount. Airports became a radiological adventure; TSA and DHA were created; technology got a lot more invasive; anti-terrorism and counterterrorism became a priority. We were more acutely aware of our vulnerabilities than we had ever been in our history.
Something else happened too…the country came together. Scene after scene of humans helping other humans. When we flew back to the US for some of our missions, we saw more signs of patriotism on cars, businesses, and people, than I ever remember seeing prior to 9/11. We chose to stand up together.
Our country has been through a lot since that day. I cannot say I feel the same cohesiveness I felt after 9/11. I am even more disappointed in what has fractioned us. However, I hope we put our divide down for a moment and just remember in unity we had during this time.
