“Wartime prayers, wartime prayers, in every language spoken, for every family scattered and broken…” – Paul Simon
On 9/11 ten years ago, I was in EMT school, learning how to dash into difficult situations and save lives — or at least that is what I was supposed to be learning. A week or so earlier, we had dropped our daughter, my youngest child, off at college up north. On the heels of the attacks, it felt like she was very, very far away.
I went a little bit crazy and sent her a gas mask and some other survival-oriented gear I bought at an Army surplus store. That freaked her out almost more than the attacks…she was supposed to be settling into art school, not worrying about terrorists.
One of the guys in my EMT class went to New York a few months after the attacks. He brought us all back FDNY hats – the real deal, sold at a fire station as a fund-raiser. The hats were navy and said, “Keep Back 200 Feet” on the back. On one side they had a little embroidered American flag with 9-11-01 underneath. I still have mine.
Somehow, getting that hat, in that class, from a guy who had seen the destruction made the post attack efforts more real. After all, we were in training to become part of the body of heroes who respond to situations like that. In a few months, we’d have uniforms and medical kits and be answering calls for help. We all hoped we had some hero in us; we weren’t sure if we did.
It turns out I don’t have any hero in me. I graduated from EMT school and passed my certification tests with flying colors. I quickly landed a job on the Athens Regional ambulance service and in no time, I was running those Code 3 (lights and sirens) calls. But all the book learning and in-class demonstrations in the world can’t make a person into a decent EMT, let alone a hero. You either have the right stuff or you don’t.
I worked full-time as an EMT for the next two years and even though I had some really great hands-on help from my skilled and very patient veteran paramedic partners, I never really got the hang of it. Instead of getting quicker and clearer in an emergency, when the adrenaline kicked in, I got clumsy and confused. Instead of living for the Code 3 call, the heart attack, the bad wreck, I lived in fear of hearing those calls come in over the radio. Instead of having what it took to save lives, I was timid, easily scared and often afraid. The ability to rise to a life or death situation was something my partners took for granted; it was something I sorely lacked.
I left the ambulance service to become an emergency room social worker, which it turned out suited my skill set much better. There were some adrenaline-filled days, but not nearly as many as on the ambulance and that was just fine with me.
Because I wanted so desperately to be a good EMT and because I turned out not to be one, I have a special admiration and respect for those firefighters, paramedics and police officers who responded on 9/11, especially for the ones who gave their lives. Some 343 firefighters and paramedics fell that day; 23 NYPD and 37 Port Authority officers died. The total number of people killed on 9/11 was 2,819. Some 1,609 people lost a spouse or partner; 3,051 kids lost a parent in the attacks. And, now, 10 years later, 4,464 U.S. service men and women have been killed in Iraq, another 1,645 in Afghanistan.
“Wartime prayers, in every language spoken, for every family shattered and broken…”
It’s a pretty song — sad, haunting, lyrical. Somehow it makes all of those losses seem more real, more tangible…Husbands, wives, sons, daughters, moms, dads, lovers, fiancés, people maybe someone had just met.
The world would not be the same after the 9/11 attacks; nor will our country ever fully recover. The way we see a lot of things has changed; and so many have died and will continue to die in the wars still being fought against terrorism.
There is a constant, however, that was evident on 9/11 and remains evident today — the existence of heroes who rise to devastating occasions — unflinching and unfailing in their response, unwavering in their willingness and need to serve.
I wanted to be one of those people. I’m not. I worked hard trying to become one of those people, but it turns out that can’t be learned.
So my old FDNY, 9-11-01 hat goes off to all the heroes who responded that day and have responded every day since, to emergencies both unthinkable in scope and small. Thank you, and thanks to all of your families, too, because unlike the rest of us, they must pray wartime prayers every day.
Lorin Sinn-Clark is features editor of the Barrow Journal. She can be reached at lorin@barrowjournal.com
