Good morning!
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m SSG Byrnes. It’s a beautiful morning outside here in Charlotte. Ten years ago today, it started off as a beautiful morning in NYC. The sun was out, it was a warm late summer day, just like this.
It was Election day in New York, primary day.
I had only been back in the military about a year. I was an adult student at Hunter College in upper Manhattan, and I had joined the National Guard after a break in service from active duty, too help pay for tuition. That Tuesday, after a morning swim, I sat down early for a 9:10 Am class. Moments later, fire engines, sirens wailing, began rolling outside the window.
After a few minutes a young woman in the rear of the class room looked up from her cell phone and said:
“ An airplane just hit the World Trade Center.”
And the world changed.
Some of the soldiers who stand here were only children that day. You have grown up in a post 9-11 world. It is a different world.
My Armory was 2 miles downtown from Hunter College. I jumped in a Taxi, the driver offered to take me over the bridge to Queens. I showed him my Military ID and promised bodily harm if he didn’t get me to the Armory.
I was one of the first soldiers from my company to arrive, but there were already a few soldiers standing guard, with Bayonets attached. By 10 AM I was in uniform. My CO sent me out to get city maps, we had none. I doubled timed to Barnes and Noble, running against the Human current still pushing north from lower Manhattan. Civilians stared at me in fear and awe.
Most of the day was spent in frustrating formations, getting new head counts. Watching the events unfold, in horror, two miles away and feeling powerless. Eventually as the sun went down my company moved out to help secure lower Manhattan. After we were posted by fireteam, we took turns walking the last block down to ground zero to view the devastation. It remains to this day the single most horrific sight I have ever seen.
For the next two weeks we stood a 12 hour shift every night, securing ground zero. By day we often helped out with traffic management, crowd control, and the bucket brigades. We averaged only three or four hours of sleep.
Almost every New Yorker lost friends, family, or acquaintances that day. Five of my school friends from Grade School, HS, or College, perished. Our armory became the family support center for families of the the nearly 3000 murdered NYers. My platoon leader lost his sister, it took, a long time for him to accept the loss. Her funeral, weeks later was the saddest I have ever been to, as shared grief focused on one woman.
We worried for comrades too. Like all Guard units we had a number of firefighters and police. While almost all the police in my unit chose to respond with the Guard, the firefighters all reported in to their fire companies that day. When SSG Sean Goodridge, and Sgt Chris Engeldrum appeared on our lines our relief was overwhelming.
Chris Engeldrum died three years later in an IED attack in Baghdad, on November 29 2004, he was killed alongside Spc Wilfredo Urbina who stood next to me that morning when Chris “finally showed up.”
I don’t imagine there are many soldiers here who don’t know the sense of grief from losing a battle buddy, if you don’t I hope you stay lucky. Loss is part of a soldier’s life especially now. Just as fear of terror attacks is now part of the American fabric, though being Americans we bear it with courage.
Today we mourn not only those who died on September 11, 2001, but the thousands of Soldiers and service members we have lost fighting to prevent further attacks. Soldiers are the kind of men and women who don’t forget. We don’t forget our comrades, and we don’t forget why we have to do this job.
Since that fateful day 10 years ago we have been a nation at war. Many of you joined the military since then. Everyone here has made a choice to join, re-enlist or extend since, everyone here has volunteered knowing we are a nation at war. 9-11 changed my life, as it surely changed the life of every soldier here.
We have all experienced the sense of pride, mixed with humility when a civilian thanks us for serving. That is a good mix.
Proud of our service, humbled by the gratitude of our fellow citizens.
I want to thank you too.
I was incredibly grateful ten years ago that I was in the National Guard, that I was able to respond in a meaningful way. I am incredibly grateful that I have the opportunity to spend this morning with fellow soldiers as well. I understand I am not welcome this morning at ground zero, I was not invited! Of course I wasn’t invited ten years ago either I just went. But Thank You, as a soldier, an American and a New Yorker thank you for having the courage of your convictions to serve in a wartime Army. And thank you for helping to ensure that we never forget.
