Diaries of a Newly Discovered Sodier

Wednesday September 11, 2001
8:00 PM
         I don’t know who I’m writing this to. I’m not even sure why I’m writing this at all. This morning I was your normal college sophomore. My routine was the same as any other day. I woke up, got dressed, and took my bus to Pace University where I’m studying Psychology. I went to a buddy’s apartment on Warren Street to hangout before our first class began, not intending to do much besides eat and watch TV. It was about 8:15 AM when I arrived. Only 30 short minutes from then the world would change. We have no idea what is happening. No one has an idea.
         I sit on his couch and flip through the channels, more as a way to pass the time rather than to actually find something worth watching. Everyone knows how daytime-TV is. Then, out of nowhere, we hear a horrible explosion. My friend comes out of the bathroom and looks at me. Together we check outside, only to see a great cloud of dark smoke filtering through Lower Manhattan. We stand and stare for what seems like forever. He runs back to the TV and searches for a news channel. No need to search, every channel shows the same site we are witnessing.
         I can’t believe my eyes. I can’t believe what I’m seeing, or hearing. 15 minutes passes and it seems like a lifetime. Reporters tell that a plane coming from Boston, MA has been hijacked. That same plane has hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. It’s on fire. We see the dark smoke as proof, still growing darker and larger by the second. While we listen, we hear it again. Another plane? It’s happening again, the second tower is struck.
         Airports, bridges, and tunnels are all being closed. We look from the TV to the window, not sure which to concentrate on. President Bush’s voice comes through. He says there has been a terrorist attack, as if we hadn’t heard. For the first time in our history, airports nationwide have been shut down. Even in Washington, DC there are attempted attacks. Another plane hits the Pentagon. It hasn’t been evacuated, but it begins to at once. Along with the Pentagon, the White House also evacuates. Everyone is running, everyone is going somewhere, but I feel rooted to the ground. In Pennsylvania another hijacked plane hits the ground. How many more are there? Where will they strike next?
         Over and over videos from Manhattan are being played. A group of people on the street is shown screaming and pointing at the South tower. The camera focuses on the tower just in time to see two people jump from the thousand-foot height. I can’t imagine how terrified they must be; the chaos that must be happening in that building is unimaginable. And at that moment something even more horrific happens, and the tower begins to crumble. The people on the streets begin to run; smoke and debris start to fill the street, blackening out the area. On another channel, a part of the Pentagon is shown collapsing. All hell has broken loose.
         They are urging everyone to stay in their homes, but we run outside to join the rest in our area, we’re all moving far from the location…too terrified of being so close. It’s worse out there. The sounds are louder and the site is more unbelievable. Thick smoke spreads everywhere, debris is starting to fall from the sky. Luckily we are at a distance that does not put us in much danger. Even from this far I can almost hear the screaming, or maybe I imagine it all. We all feel the need to help, but we’re helpless. We know there’s nothing we can do. So we sit and we watch. Some scream, but most are crying.
         And that’s how the day went, for the most part. We crowded around the television, listening to reports, comforting those around us; some we knew, some were strangers. Looking out at the city, smoke was still consuming the area, lights on fire trucks and police were flashing all over. And we knew that people were dying.
         Tomorrow I am going home to my family for a few days. My mom called and told me that my little sister was crying for me. My uncle called earlier today to say that my cousin Richard and my Aunt Helen were missing. They were both called to the city.
         My cousin is a police officer. My aunt is a nurse.
Steve

Thursday September 12, 2001
11:48 AM
I left the city early this morning, and now I am at my parent’s house in Schenectady. My sister ran up to me when I pulled in the driveway. I was exhausted from the long drive, but I couldn’t help but accept her feeble tackle. She’s turning 7 soon. She looked happy, but I could tell she had been crying. I picked her up, swung her over my arm and carried her back into the house. My parents were sitting at the kitchen table with our neighbor Anna. One by one they got up to give me a hug. Even saying hello to people seems more emotional now.
         My uncle called a 5:00 this morning. A police officer had shown up at his house. They found my cousin while clearing debris from the site. Him and 23 other NYPD officers were identified. He was still alive, but barely. They rushed him to the hospital as fast as they could. He died on the way. So far there is still no word on my aunt. A staff member at the hospital she works for told my uncle that she, as well as a number of others, volunteered to go to the city and help the injured. Only a little over half the volunteers came back. They had just arrived when the second tower fell.
Steve

9:14 PM, same day
         President Bush has declared war.
         After putting my sister to sleep, we went to the living room and watched his speech. My neighbor is still here while her husband is in the city helping. She doesn’t want to be alone and I can’t say I blame her. While we listened to the speech, my father shook his head. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the announcement myself. It seems that a lot has changed in the 24 hours. For one thing, I have never before been able to sit through a speech our President has made for more than a few minutes. And yet I listened to the entire thing. I guess we don’t have much of a choice now. We all want to know what is going to happen, regardless of who it is that has to tell us.
         Now I am sitting in my old bedroom, at my old desk. I called the friend that I was with yesterday, to see how he was doing. We drove down together, both needing to spend time with our families. I asked him if he watched the speech, and he said he had. I asked how he felt about it. He told me he was all for it, he wants to help.
         When I got off the phone with him I walked into my sister’s room. She was lying there sound asleep. I knelt by her bed and looked at her. I’m so proud of her, because I know she’s been scared. She may not even know what’s going on. She’s been a great help with the neighbor’s little boy, who is just barely 5. She’s kept him occupied. His mother doesn’t want him to see her so upset.
         While I was in her room my father also came in. Neither of us seemed very surprised to see the other one there. He sat with me and we exchanged a few whispered words. I asked him how he felt about the war being declared. He told me he didn’t approve of it, he doesn’t think we will win; he doesn’t think it will make much of a difference at all. He says terrorism will always exist, that it cannot be defeated with ammunition. We can shoot down as many as we want only to find two more popping up in their place.
         He asked me how I felt about it. I couldn’t give him an answer.
Steve

Friday September 18, 2001
11:33 PM
         I came home, walked through the door, and saw everyone sitting at the kitchen table again. I hadn’t given any thought to how I would go about telling them. Would I sit down with them, one at a time, and explain what I had done? Or would I just blurt out my news right here, feed it to them all at the same time? Would my father be angry? I knew how he felt about it and I didn’t want him getting upset. What would I do if they cried? I know my mother would cry at least. I don’t know how I would handle that either. How would I explain it to my sister? She wouldn’t understand what I was telling her. She’d think I was making it up. But regardless of how I put it, the truth remained the same. I joined the fight.
         And as I walked through that door and saw them all, that’s exactly what slipped through my lips. Just two simple words, “I’ve joined.” Standing there in the doorway, everyone staring at me, I felt bigger than ever before. Never in my life had I made a more important, life-altering decision, and they knew it too. Their reactions were similar to what I imagined. After staring at me for an eternity, my father got up, grabbed a pack of cigarettes and went into the basement without saying a word. I looked at my mother and neighbor, while my sister walked over and tugged at my shirt. “Joined what Steve, joined what?” she kept asking. I knelt down and put my hand on her shoulder. I asked her if she understood what was happening on the TV, that it wasn’t a movie or show, it was real. She nodded her tiny head and said, “Mommy told my that bad people hurt everyone.” I told her, “yes, they did something very bad, and people got hurt, like cousin Richie. I’m going to help people like he did.”
         She laughed at me and told me I “wasn’t any police man.” I laughed and ruffled her hair. “No, I’m no police man,” I told her, “but I’m going to help people in a different way. I’m going to fight for them and most importantly for you too. And make sure that the bad people don’t hurt anyone again.”
         My mother began to cry at that. I asked my sister if she understood, and she said yes. I know she really didn’t, but in time I knew she would. I went over to my mother and she hugged me and continued to cry. I spent 45 minutes hugging her before I finally told her I needed to talk to my dad. He must have gone through half the pack by now. She had calmed down enough and she said that her and our neighbor would make a big dinner to celebrate.
         In the basement I didn’t immediately find my father. I looked in each section and found him at the far end, sitting on an old sofa smoking. He had his back turned, and I walked toward him without saying a word. When I was an arms length away I realized he was crying. I stopped. Never in my life had I seen my father cry, with the exception of our dog dying ten years before, which is an unwritten emotional-waiver in any guy’s life. I walked around the sofa and sat down next to him, neither of us said a word for a while. I saw that he was holding an old, wrinkled photograph. I recognized it as one of us, back when I was about 13. We had gone camping on a family trip, before my sister was born.
I began telling him how my friend called me a few days earlier and said he was going to the Marines Recruiting Station in Albany to enlist. I had told him to pick me up. Together we went, met a recruiter, got our information and filled out papers. We were scheduled to leave in two months, on November 11. Until then we had both worked out a schedule to build our fitness, and the recruiter also encouraged us to build on mental preparation and study habits. I talked to him for a good hour, trying to fill up the silence with information that was useless to him. Sooner than expected I began to run out of things to say, and began to worry. He hadn’t said anything to me at all. When I finally stopped we sat in quiet for a few more moments. Then he turned and looked at me, said he was proud, and hugged me. That sealed the deal for me. At that moment I knew I would never regret my decision.
Steven

Wednesday November 10, 2001
2200
         Tomorrow my dad is taking me to the airport, and I’m leaving for South Carolina to begin my training. The past two months have been hard. My friend and I have been dedicated to prepare together. The months ahead will be even harder. If we both succeed this I think it will be the greatest thing either of us has ever done.
         My sister came into my room tonight while she was supposed to be in bed. She sat on my bed and didn’t say much to me, just looked at the floor. I asked her if there was something wrong and she shook her head. She can be so stubborn at times. As I started to tell her she needed to go back to her own room, she looked up at me and asked, “will I ever see you again?” It hit me hard. I wasn’t prepared for it. I put my arm around her and told her again that I wasn’t going away forever. Only 13 weeks and I would be able to visit her and the rest of the family. I told her she would get to come down to South Carolina for my graduation when I finally completed boot camp. Telling her this seemed to cheer her up; she stopped crying and began to ask questions. This is a common trick little kids pull on their parents to cause them to forget what they were originally going to say, just as I soon found myself too tired to kick her out of my room. Soon her questions began to blur together incoherently and we found ourselves fast asleep.
Steven

Tuesday January 20, 2002
0622
         I did it. We did it. And I’m home now for 10 amazing days with my family and friends. I came home and immediately found this book. I didn’t bring it with me to training because I honestly didn’t believe I would write in it again, or why I would want to. But I feel that this has become a sort of companion to me, and I need to document these important moments in some way.
         The very day that I arrived at the Recruit Depot we began our training. Overall it was exhausting, and harder than even I imagined. The first four weeks we had examinations; we took tests, learned how to handle weapons and completed what they call the “11-Obstacle Confidence Course.” I wrote home twice a week. From then on we moved to Marksmanship training, and worked on progressing our skills as gunmen. The last remaining weeks tested our confidence, our strength, our weakness, and our level of commitment. These were by far the hardest weeks we had to endure, but we did so willingly. We began Basic Warrior Training, which prepared us for the 54 hour-long Crucible test, which we all needed to pass in order to graduate as a Marine. Describing it takes far less time than actually completing it. And to think that all this time I believed the SAT’s were going to be the longest tests I ever had to struggle through.
Graduation was incredible and worth all the pain it took to get there. Seeing my family there, as well as the families of the companions I had made while at training, made us all feel united and ready to do whatever it took to make them proud and keep them safe.
         Now I’m back home for 10 days, and after that I leave to carry on training at the School of Infantry. I’m taking this time to look back at how I used to be, and how much this has changed me. I see life through new eyes. It’s far more valuable. Each day is treasured more and more, especially this time I will be spending with those I love the most. I only get 30 days of vacation time from the Marines. One month out of every year is all I will be able to give them. I still don’t regret it though. It’s exhilarating and motivating.
         I may be like my father. I may not completely agree with the war we are now fighting, but regardless I am going to do as much as I can to contribute to it, to keep the people I love the most safe. I don’t know where my life would have led me if I had not taken this opportunity. Maybe I would have graduated with my PhD in Psychology as I had planned. Some of my friends don’t understand why I joined. They say I should have stayed in school. I look at them, on their way to becoming lawyers, bankers, businessmen and teachers. I smile to myself when I hear the things they say, because I have a duty to them, and they don’t even know it.
         I’ve got the best job of them all.
Private Steven M. Johnson