Saturday, September 11, 2010

9/11/2001

Where were you on that fateful day, September 11, 2001?  That will be the question repeated again and again on each anniversary.  Where was I?  Let me tell you, it seems like only yesterday. 

I was in Kuwait just finishing my work day planning a VIP General's visit to the Arifjan, US Army site near the Saudi border.  Although I had left after my nine years as a reporter for the Kuwait Arab Times newspaper, August the year before, I was hired back to Kuwait by the US Army COE to assist our nine engineers.  Were we preparing for the 2003 invasion of Iraq? The nine engineers had already completed their work on the Qatar US Airforce Base, which became the strategic headquarters for that upcoming invasion by the US Military in 2003.  Remember that initial bombing Iraq deemed "Shock and Awe?"
         
Here's how I first knew of the disaster in New York. The sun was just going down  in the Kuwaiti desert.  I was working late in order to complete the itinerary for another general's escorted tour. So many military VIPS wanted their chance to view our progress on the site.  A side trip to Kuwait. This was always a major disruption of our regular work activities. The tour plan had to be completed.  It was necessary for visitors to be escorted every step of the way, since we were all aware of unexploded devices. This meant driving only in tracks left earlier by an EOD vehicle for safety reasons.  At least once a week you would hear an explosion of a discovered personnel or tank mine by a military EOD contingent on site to dispose of ordinance by controlled explosion.  Very nerve wracking at times.
         
My boss, the head engineer, was working with me to complete our task.  We were the only Americans left at the trailer offices, along with two Egyptian guards who had already retired to their trailer for the evening. We were just finishing up the last details, when he received a phone call from his wife who worked out at Camp Doha. She had just heard that a plane had crashed into one of the Towers in New York City.  He put down the phone and told me what had happened.  "She heard it may be just a movie short put on the news as a hoax."  So until a second phone call we weren't that concerned.  The phone rang again.  This time his wife reported a second plane had just crashed into the second Tower.  This time there was panic in her voice and I'll always remember the expression of shock on my boss's face when he took that call.
          
We both froze for a moment. Then he said, "We better finish this up quickly and head on out.  Apparently, this has been a terrorist attack on our country."  We gathered up the paperwork which had been sorted into the various folders for the VIPs and our engineers that would conduct a tour the next day at our work site.  "So, we're finished with our task.  Probably the General's visit will be canceled now since we've been attacked.  Anyway, our job is done. We'd better head out now before dark."
        
Just as we were leaving for our Prado vehicles, his wife called again on his cell phone.  She explained that no one was now allowed to leave Doha Base.  Deciding it was pretty serious, since Iraq was just across the border and suspected of having been involved in the attack, he and I began our 'phone chain' calling each of the other eight engineers who had left earlier.  We each called the first one on our list by cell phone and told them to 'pass the word' and told them to 'lock down' their apartments (each had a well secured 2nd floor apartment) and stay there until further notice.  As I opened the door to my SUV, he said: "Follow close behind me and let's stay in contact with our cell phones until we get back on the paved road."  After a bumpy ride over our one and only way out of the site, it was already night fall by the time we reached the Kuwait Coast Highway.  Once home we checked with one another to make sure everyone was safe and secure.
        
Safe and secure?  I didn't have engineer status, so I lived in a 5th floor apartment, far from an American complex and without any real security.  Of course, I didn't have access to any 'secret' information either, because our computers had been installed by the US Military and mine could not access the information that might have been valuable to our enemy, whoever that might have been at the time, probably mostly concerned about Iraq.  You see, the  secure apartments were no more than two floors off the ground and were installed with escape ladders at a window.  I guess my only escape would've been to dash down the only stairwell or jump off my balcony as the elevator was usually out of commission.  Go figure.
         
By the time I safely reached my apartment and turned on the local television news channel, there was a video of the Towers burning.  Then I watched in absolute disbelief and horror as both Towers imploded to the earth.  The audio with the video was saying: "people are jumping to their deaths."  I sat on my sofa in total fear and my heart was broken realizing the many families that were literally being torn apart by this horrible event.  I turned off the television and sat in the dark for hours praying.  There was nothing else I could do.
         
It was the next day before I received follow up phone calls from my colleagues.  Family members back in the US later explained it was impossible to get a call through to Kuwait.  I had to rely on US Military information over the next couple of days and everything seemed to be getting worse and no one really had a definitive  answer about the situation.  Did I know anyone who worked in the Towers?  No.  However, they were my fellow Americans and I wondered if this meant another World War. I imagined that this could be only the beginning of the end.  Yes, I remember exactly where I was September 11, 2001.

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