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Community Corner

Reflective Thoughts, Post-9/11

Mark Schlottman remembers where he was on Sept. 11, 2001.

Most of us know where we were on Sept. 11, 2001.

Working as a sales rep, I had just left Davis Concrete Company, Inc., in Aberdeen. I had the radio in my truck tuned to WYSP, the station out of Philadelphia that simulcasts the Howard Stern Show. I remember glancing at the truck’s clock and noting the time: 9:07 a.m. I listened, as Howard and Robin Quivers talked about a plane that had apparently flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. The mood in the studio was still rather light-hearted and fun but I could tell that the seriousness of the situation was starting to creep into Howard’s voice. 

Thinking that the plane flying into the towers was accidental, I made my way home to watch the news and find out a little more about the situation. I hadn’t planned on watching more than a few minutes of the live, CNN coverage that I knew would be on TV. 

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In the 10, short minutes it took me to get home, another jet, Flight No. 175, crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. I knew right then and there that something was drastically wrong and the odds of two jets slamming into the twin towers were remote.

And so I sat down, glued to the TV, waiting to hear an explanation of exactly what happened. I started to get emails from a friend of mine in New Jersey whose sons were in Manhattan during the attack.  Gliding between my computer screen and the TV, I was afforded an almost in-person account of the panic and destruction that defined New York City that day.

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Watching the TV, reading and responding to the emails forwarded from Jersey City, through Mullica Hill, NJ, and then to me in Aberdeen, I was still wide awake at 3 a.m., on the morning of Sept. 12, having never left the TV nor my computer for those 17 plus hours.

Businesses closed early in the Baltimore area on Sept. 11, allowing the employees to hurry home to their families.

Getting a couple of hours of sleep before heading back on the road on Sept. 12, I found many businesses closed for the day.

Life and business in the Aberdeen and Baltimore areas tried to return to some semblance of order later in the week. 

In the days and weeks that followed, there were some glaring changes to life and my routine. The gates at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, once, easily traveled through, became a checkpoint, complete with armed MPs, sporting loaded M-16s and a machine gun nest just inside the gates. Full vehicle searches made the trip onto APG a morning-long adventure, forcing some workers to turn around and head back home after waiting more than four hours to pass through the tightened security.

I remember the scrutiny in place, immediately following 9/11, at public buildings. Showing identification, emptying pockets and having the guard call the person you were to meet, became standard operating procedure for months afterward.

Travel, as we all know, changed drastically immediately following 9/11. Fully-armed National Guardsmen were stationed at the airports. Much stricter screening of passengers, including removal of shoes, belts, coats and laptops from their cases, became the norm.

A constant reminder of our threat level was communicated to us on an almost daily basis.

Life, as we knew it, would forever change. Our trust, our innocence, our naïve thought that we would and could never be attacked as we’ve seen other countries, all came to an abrupt and eye-opening end.

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