September 11 has always been a private day of remembrance for me, partly because my personal circumstances are so different today than they were ten years ago. I had a much different experience than many of my current colleagues that day, but I haven’t talked about it or shared much. I’ve seen many colleagues making inquiries about ceremonies or programs to mark the tenth anniversary, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to share my own experience. Earlier this week, though, I read Justin Rudisille’s post on the ACUI Commons, offered a comment of my own, and found myself thinking about it the rest of the day. So here I sit, sharing my thoughts from a different lifetime, partly for myself, partly for anyone who reads this, but mostly just to share. You won’t hear stories from me about a campus community coming together, but you may know what it is like to have been closer to being a part of it than one would ever want.
The events of 9/11 happened before I started graduate school for higher education and student affairs work. While my station in life was much different ten years ago, the two milestones have always been intimately connected. After graduating from college on a Naval ROTC scholarship, I served five years in the Navy, and three years as a civilian government contractor in Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC. When I separated from the Navy after completing my scholarship obligation, the tug towards student affairs was always in the back of my mind, but the promise of a decent-paying job in a familiar area (I grew up in Northern VA not too far from where I eventually worked) outshone the weighty decision to go back to school for a higher degree, and a higher calling. Eventually, as you must know by now, the ‘allure’ of Student Affairs was too great, so I began the process of taking GREs, researching programs, and charting my new path. That was during the fall of 2001.
I provide all of this background simply to say that on that particularly non-descript Tuesday I found myself in a familiar routine, starting my day on the 7th floor of our office building in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. A creature of habit, I was most likely eating brown sugar and cinnamon pop-tarts with a cup of tea (even the Navy failed to make me a coffee drinker!), catching up on news or other items on a platform other than Twitter or Facebook. Our client, a division of the Navy headquartered in the Pentagon, had cancelled a briefing scheduled to take place that morning; otherwise I might have been in a different place, on the road towards the Pentagon or perhaps already in the parking lot heading into the building. Moments away from heading down to our classified lab, which would have secluded me from news sources, my coworker in the cube next to me let out an exclamation as her mom relayed the news on the phone. We spent the rest of the day, with the rest of America, glued to news reports and TV screens, unable to fully comprehend what was happening.
While most people can recount in painful detail where they were when the news of the World Trade Center Towers was announced, for me the news I cannot escape was the announcement of the attack on the Pentagon 45 minutes after. My work partner was still driving back when American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, a scene he watched and felt from the highway not even a half mile from the point of impact. Had he been running on time, as opposed to his notoriously late arrivals, he would have been inside the building already. Our staff and clients in the Pentagon were located mere feet from the point of impact, a fact that shocked me again when we were let back into the building weeks later and saw the devastation.
I left work that day and returned to my apartment; looking back I am sure my plan was to complete a few practice exams for the GRE. Knowing that would not be possible, I retreated to my girlfriend’s apartment, where we watched the news until we simply could not take in any more of the grief and destruction.
Just over a month later, the Army 10-Miler road race, a usual tune-up for the Marine Corps Marathon, was cancelled due to lingering security concerns (the race traditionally starts and finishes on the grounds of the Pentagon). Two weeks later, the Marine Corps Marathon did take place, under heavy surveillance, including helicopters and snipers, and our course was rerouted to avoid what was still a tragic scene on the far side of the building. As a running purist, I do not wear shirts from races in which I do not compete, however I still run in my 2001 Army 10-Miler shirt, because of what it represents.
I learned soon after the attacks that a friend from my undergraduate days at Boston College was among those in the Towers that day. I recently learned about the heroism of another Boston College alumnus, Welles Crowther, who helped save as many as a dozen lives immediately following the attack. As each year passes, there may always be a new piece of information that connects me, and maybe many of you, to the circumstances of September 11. Each piece draws me back to the person I was ten years ago, and the unbelievable set of circumstances that conspired to allow me to have this story to tell.
On one of my trips to Ohio during my application process that eventually guided me to my current work, I detoured through Pennsylvania, drawn to an often-forgotten site where the fourth plane went down, its only casualties the 40 passengers aboard United Flight 93. My pilgrimage to Ground Zero is also tied to my Higher Education path, as I was able to visit during an Alternative Spring Break trip in 2003. While not on our trip itinerary for the week, I was compelled to go there myself, to see first-hand what seemed so surreal not even two years before. My work in Student Affairs has thus been quite separate, but quite a part of, September 11, 2001. Undoubtedly, the two will remain intertwined for years to come. And I may still choose to reflect on my own, from the very different place I found myself that morning.
Jeff Pelletier is the Assistant Director of the Ohio Union at The Ohio State University.
