Like many of you, I grew up hearing my parents say, “I remember where I was when I heard John F. Kennedy was shot…”
For years, those words didn’t quite resonate with me. But decades later, I find myself saying something similar, out loud, and with a lump in my throat: “I remember September 11th like it happened yesterday.”
That Morning on the Naval Base
On September 11th, 2001, I was working for the United States Navy as a Visual Merchandise Manager. I wasn’t enlisted—I was a civilian DOD employee overseeing seven retail stores on the Newport Naval Base in Rhode Island.
It was a cool, crisp morning. I was driving to one of my storage units on base, soaking in the kind of September day that makes you grateful to live in New England.
When I arrived, a Seabee casually told me, “A plane just flew into the World Trade Center.”
Shocked, yes—but like many of us in those first moments, I assumed it was a terrible accident.
Minutes later, I walked into the Navy Exchange and joined a small crowd huddled around the televisions in the Electronics Department. Together, we watched the second plane hit the South Tower. In an instant, everything changed.
What the Military Wives Knew
I looked at the faces of the women I’d worked beside for the past year—nearly all of them military wives.
There was no gasp, no tears, no frantic shouting. Just silence.
And in that silence, I realized they knew something I didn’t.
They knew not to reach for the phone. They knew their husbands might be unreachable. They knew this wasn’t an accident. They knew this meant war.
As a police officer’s soon-to-be wife, I had no frame of reference for military life except what I had picked up by working beside them. I was a voyeur to their sacrifices, and on that morning, I was humbled by their unspoken strength.
The Base Locks Down
The retired military store manager turned to me and said, “Turn off the TVs. We’ve got a store to open.”
I obeyed, still in the dark, but I could feel the electricity in the air. Something enormous was unfolding.
Minutes later, after word of the Pentagon attack reached us, the base commander ordered everyone to evacuate: “You have 21 minutes to get off this base or else you’re staying here indefinitely.”
In a blur, cash drawers were emptied into bags, the store was abandoned, and we raced to our cars. Guards who normally greeted us with smiles had been replaced with machine gun bunkers, barricades, and bomb-sniffing dogs.
The world had shifted.
A Civilian’s Response
Once off the base, I pulled over, shaking like a leaf. I had no idea what to do.
How does one prepare for war?
Being a New England girl with no military background, I reverted to what I knew: hurricane prep. I filled my gas tank, withdrew cash, bought batteries, and stocked up on groceries. It felt laughably inadequate, but it was all I had.
When I finally made it home, my fiancé was waiting on the front steps. He reassured me his children were safe, though our son-in-law, a Poughkeepsie firefighter, was on his way to the city to help. That kind of sacrifice still humbles me.
And when I heard about the civilians on Flight 93—choosing to sacrifice their own lives to stop a greater tragedy—I was staggered. There is no greater act of valor.
A New Normal
The base reopened a few days later to prepare active duty for deployment. The military spouses I worked with amazed me. Many still had little to no contact with their husbands, yet they carried on with resilience that can only be described as heroic.
The weeks that followed were a blur of “new normal”:
- Color-coded threat levels.
- Funerals for our heroes.
- Standing together as a nation at Ground Zero.
- Watching our Commander in Chief throw the first pitch at Yankee Stadium, a message to the world that we were not defeated.
The world we had known was gone. A new America was rising from the ashes.
What I Carry With Me
In those days after 9/11, we were united as a country in a way I fear we may never be again.
We were stunned. We were grieving. But we were also standing shoulder to shoulder, determined to honor the fallen, protect the living, and prove that our spirit could not be broken.
And that is why, even decades later, I still say with absolute clarity:
I remember September 11th like it happened yesterday.