The Urge to Serve: The Pull of 9/11

Yahoo! is asking Americans how September 11 changed them. Below is an account from a reader.

I served in the Army in the mid-90s. While I was a soldier, I got very lucky. I enlisted after the first Gulf War was over, and was discharged before we really got seriously involved in Kosovo. My one and only duty station was in Texas at Fort Sam Houston. As a life-long New Englander, living in Texas was almost like being in a foreign country, but I truly know how lucky I was to never be in any danger while I wore the uniform.

[Your story: How has September 11 changed you?]

Being in the military is akin to joining a really large fraternity. There’s a pledge period where the people in charge find out if you’re a good fit to be one of them. A fair amount of good natured hazing takes place, during and after your initial pledge period. The pledge process makes you into a different person, a better person. And you live and work with your fraternity brothers and sisters every single day.

When you leave the service, that feeling of “belonging” is left behind. You still have a sense of connection to the service, but the longer you are gone, the more tenuous it becomes. For the rest of your life, you will always be a member, but just like a college fraternity, you aren’t a member in the same way as the kids currently living in the frat house. And you miss it.

A very small percentage of Americans volunteer to serve. You’ve got to be a special kind of crazy to sign on the dotted line. The government, and through them the people, owns you for the duration of your contract. You agree to do what they say, when they say it, whether or not you like it. It’s a rare individual who can do that. Which is why, no matter how many years we’ve been away, even if we’re too old to reenlist, vets never lose the urge to serve.

Whenever we see and hear news about our brothers and sisters going into harm’s way, a part of us wishes we were there with them. When disaster strikes, we wish we could suit up and join them, whatever the mission. After 9/11, almost every former service member I know thought the same thing I was. Our country is in trouble, and Uncle Sam needs us again.

It’s a tough call to resist. Even though you know you cannot go back, that there really isn’t a place for you there anymore, you still want to. When the attacks happened, I was in my second semester of college. I was standing in the college cafeteria, glued to the television as I and dozens of my classmates watched the World Trade Center crumble. I was the sole support for my wife and children, who needed me at home. I knew in my heart of hearts that I couldn’t reenlist. They probably wouldn’t take me anyway, since I was discharged due to an injury. Even so, I wanted to do it. Wanted to go back, to help, to stand with them against this new enemy.

Ultimately, I did the right thing and stayed in school. It’s now 10 years later, and I just finished a Masters degree in history. As before, I was lucky. The tragic events of 9/11 did not affect me directly. I didn’t know anyone who lost their life, or have any friends or family who lost a loved one. What 9/11 did for me was remind me that one phase of my life was over, and I had to focus on the next one. I missed being a soldier (sometimes, even after all this time, I still do), but that time for me was in the past.

You cannot go back, no matter how much you want to. It’s the same for us all. No matter how much we try, we cannot go back to how things were before the Towers fell. We have to go forward. This is our world now, and we have to live in it the best way we can.


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *