September 11, 2001

          My name is Victor Thompson. For the sake of historical records, I have decided to record the events of today as they have reawakened deep emotional scaring.

 I am retired from the Army Green Barrettes.  After two campaigns in the Vietnam War, and three purple hearts, I was given honorable discharge due to disability.  I should say now that my disability is post traumatic stress disorder.  Typically, when anything even remotely resembles some aspect of war, I relapse in to that state of mind.  I can’t watch war movies because of it.  Today was just like living the whole war over again, in one day.

OK, so it sounds a little cliché but, today started like any other day.  For me the day always begins with the paper. Today was election day for the state.  Giuliani  has to leave office because of term limitations.

Thank God for it too, I don’t know if I could stand another four years under that right winged hawk,  or any other republican for that matter, even if Lyndon Johnson was a democrat and responsible for this damn condition.

The polls in the Times showed that Bloomsburg was just slightly behind.  I gave a quick scan of each candidates platform, but my mind was set.  Those republicans would not hold this city hostage another term.  Come the end of today I wouldn’t be so concerned about republicans holding the city hostage.

I left my apartment around 8:45 this morning. Walking to work in my Port Authority Uniform, I looked up at the twin towers, thinking about the memories of my late childhood and how the construction of those towers impacted my life.

Looking down again, I pushed my way through a sea of people who slowed and then came to a stop.  Bemused, I kept my head down and continued to forge ahead. I never knew there was a plane over head, never heard the engine, until the explosion rocked the street.  I had no idea what had happened, but every training exercise or combat experience told me how to react.   I dove behind a mail box.  Crawling, someone finally conceded to tell me what had happened. A large air liner had steered into the north tower. 

Those pleasant memories I had just moments before all came flooding back to me and it seemed as if my very person had been attacked.  It seems a little ironic since everyone assumed that mechanical or pilot error was to blame.  I glanced at my watch, it was 8:50.  Despite the tragedy I still had to be at work by nine.  Keeping an eye on the towers I started moving again.  Someone in the office had to know more about what had happened, somehow.

Walking as fast as I could without paying full attention to the crowed, I stopped dead when a second large air craft came into view.  At the speed and path it came in at, it was pretty obvious that nothing was wrong with the plane, The pilot seemed pretty sure of the path too.  It suddenly dawned on the entire populous of downtown Manhattan that these collisions were deliberate attacks.

My throat was constricted, I couldn’t move.  Seeing that second plane sent me back thirty years.  I was being flown into a remote part of Vietnam as part of a bloodhound operation to search out Vietcong camps.  We were flying low to avoid radar when we were shot down  I remember feeling the whole plane jolt, hearing the engines cut out, and the screams and yells of other troops as the plane plummeted and I blacked out.

When I came to, I was sprawled out on a stoop, just as the plane hit.  I got up and got a bottle of water from an abandoned street vendor cart and sat down again to catch my breath.

I couldn’t believe what I had just witnesses.  I took a moment  to soak it in, then my thoughts turned to my disorder.  Years of behavioral and group therapy seemed to have been wasted.  There wasn’t a thing pills could do for me now.  The best thing I could think to do was get to work and see what had to be done.

I didn’t arrive at the office until 9:30, just in time to hear the president’s decrees on the attacks.  His orders to hunt down and bring to justice these perpetrators sent me back in time again.

Only a few members of my team survived that plane wreck.  We reported back to HQ what had happened.  They put a salvage crew in motion and ordered us to proceed with our mission.  The flash back jumped ahead a little bit and I was crawling down a dark tunnel holding a flashlight in one hand and a Colt .45 in the other and praying I didn’t stumble into any booby traps.  I was rooting out the enemy at extreme risk to my self.

Once again the irony of this whole thing hits me, this if indeed it’s proven that those towel head, mole rats, are responsible for this whole thing, out forces will be flushing the enemy out of holes in the ground again.

After the presidents announcement the boss stood up and started handing out assignments.  Some were sent to communication centers to monitor activity while the rest of us were sent out for crowd control.

Back on the street my sense were wide open and absorbing everything:  the smoke, the heat, the massive crowds and he disheartening cracking of bodies hitting the pavement. The sight and sound, akin the an egg cracking, paralyzed me.  I started sweating and the third flashback came in like a wave.

Our unit had been pinned down and our numbers were slowly dwindling.  An air strike was to risky because of the proximity of the lines, so reinforcements and big guns air lifted and parachuted in.  Only the parachuting didn’t work too well.  I don’t know what happened but suddenly, instead of friendly troops and artillery wafting down among us, we were bombarded with screaming bodies that disintegrated and hurtling hunks of metal that exploded sending shrapnel everywhere.

God, this day as more than hellish.  These bastards have the audacity to attack us, a nondescript population just because of our culture, and to do it all in the name of Holy War.  Killing hundreds of unknowing members of their own religion.  And they still don’t have the courage to live through it and take responsibility.  God!  If only they could die twice, and slowly the second time.  But I’ve got to keep moving the day’s not over yet.  Nothing is certain anymore.

Of course this couldn’t be the end of it all, so much else was yet to go down.  Two more planes, one in the Pentagon, another in the middle of a field in Pennsylvania (probably headed for Washington).  Finally, with the collapse of the towers I was reduced to huddling in the door of a building.  Completely debilitated and helpless.  Between my condition and the dust I could hardly breath.  I stayed like that for a long time.  I couldn’t tell how long, I’d lost my watch earlier and the sun had been eclipsed by the dust, leaving me in almost total darkness.  My thoughts were a mix of childhood memories, war time flashbacks, and a need to survive.  Finally I succumbed to sleep.

I heard the rescue crew long before I saw them.  Coughing I crawled out to an open space where I was discovered.  I lost consciousness as they carried me out.