The doctors told me that was the day my first son was due, and I was so excited because I could tell people that he was born on 9-11 because it was a huge emergency. Fortunately, he came late because later that day would be forever remembered as the anniversary of the terror attacks.
The day it happened was surreal. I was still in Air Force, at the time, working on a project for an event called Corona. The general wanted a poster of the Blue Angels flying over the Tampa skyline. As I moved the planes over that city-scape, someone in the office turned on the television and blasted the news. In shock, we watched the American Airlines Flight 11 and the United Airlines Flight 175 crash into the North and South towers. I looked at the television screen and then I looked at my monitor. I felt like I was inside a dark apocalyptic dream drenched in disaster. Later that day the General asked for the plane on the poster to be moved further away from the city-scape, and I couldn’t blame him. Like a good soldier, I did as I was told.
Just the year before, an F-16 collided with a Cessna about 20 miles southeast of our base and our team was sent to document it. It’s hard to get rid of a human body not just dead but destroyed, to be etched forever into one’s memory. It’s not like watching a movie. It’s a blade that strikes deep into your psyche and that’s all you see when you close your eyes. I remember the torso and then a limb some miles away as you try to piece together what was once a living, breathing, human being. In tech school there was a class on disassociating yourself from what you see so as not to follow the footsteps of Kevin Carter, a famous photographer who saw too much tragedy and macabre it ended up killing him. It’s funny how I didn’t think I would bear witness to anything close to that just because I wasn’t going into combat. Funny how life goes.
Usually I don’t mention the ugly parts I had experienced when I was in the military. I usually brag about how I photographed the Blue Angels, Generals and other high officials, Air Force One, NFL, and even Rush Limbaugh, but hardly ever do I mention the photos of decapitated body parts or domestic abuse, bruises on children, blood on the floor, women bashed by her husband, brains on a windshield. For everything beautiful there is something Ugly.
When I think of 9-11 this all comes to the front of my mind, and how one of my photographs made front page of the base paper the next morning, as I shot the aftermath of terror, the long hours of traffic that ensued as security forces were put on high alert. Code Red meant cover on all building signs and snipers on the rooftops, long hours, early days, late nights, and barely any sleep.
People sometimes ask me if I enjoyed my time in the military. Like anyplace, it had it’s ups and downs.