NEVER FORGET...
Posted on 09/10/2006 10:58:36 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
I am an only child. I've never known the joy, frustration, tears, and love shared with or against a sibling. My husband is the middle child of two brothers. He has spent his entire life looking up to and adoring his older brother. A brother who was always smarter, stronger, and even more favored by their father. Even into their adult life, my husband always valued his brother's opinion over anyone else's. Including mine (before we were married).
My husband, Scott, was older when we met and got married. His brother, Wayne, had married quite young and joined the Navy. For many years, Scott would enjoy visiting them in the various different Naval bases in and even out of the country. Several years ago, Wayne was visited by a Christian pastor and he gave his heart to the Lord. Through that channel, God moved mountains in my husband's life and with the wisdom, guidance and council of Wayne, Scott also fully gave his life over to Jesus Christ. Their short visits with one another took on a whole new level as they studied the Bible together and grew in the fellowship of their new-found faith.
Wayne's wife, Nancy, also grew and flourished under her husband's careful training and unwavering devotion to her. They had been sweethearts from the time they were in elementary school! I do not know of anyone else who had such a lasting relationship from those days on the playground during recess or that that was even possible.
In 2000, Wayne and Nancy, along with their four small children, moved from Iceland to a military base in Washington, D.C. where Wayne took up his new position working in the United States Pentagon. From their street where their new house sat, they could even see the Pentagon across the Potomac River, though traffic in D.C. is so wretched it would still take him over an hour by car to actually get there.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, it was a normal morning, with a normal breakfast, and normal farewell as Wayne kissed the wife of his youth and their children good-bye. There was no special, foreboding music playing in the background of Nancy's mind as she turned to clean off the breakfast dishes and prepare the older children for yet another day of homeschooling.
So the morning went until suddenly a tremendous, unrealistic crash was heard off in the distance. Wondering what that was, Nancy still plowed on with her children until shortly they all jumped as they heard a pounding on the door. Someone was hysterical. She ran to the door only to have her neighbor collapse in her arms sobbing, "THEY'VE BEEN HIT. THE PENTAGON!" Nancy let go of her friend, raced out the door, down the street to the gathering group of military wives, only to discover to her horror, the Pentagon was up in flames. Smoke billowed up in the air. They could smell it from where they were standing. They had no idea what happened. They all thought the entire building had been bombed. The women hugged each other and cried. Nancy's children cried. The littlest ones didn't know what was going on, but they cried also. The women all returned to their houses to grab their cordless phones and met back up in the street.
*ring, ring*
It didn't take but an hour for the first of the neighbors to receive a call from her husband. "Honey, I'm alright. I made it out of the building safely. I love you. I'm coming home. I'll see you soon." Like popcorn, that seemed to start all the phones ringing with just about the same message. By the end of the following hour, every single one of the women had talked to her husband. All of the men were safe.
All but one. One phone remained deadly silent. One woman quietly sat amongst her friends. Friends who no longer knew what to say to her.
That phone was Nancy's.
The hours ticked by. She watched the news. She walked down the street and witnessed the horror that she knew had taken the life of her husband. Disbelief and reality came in waves.
He isn't dead. He can't be.
But I know he is. He would've called by now. He would've called me six hours ago when everyone else got their phone calls.
Nancy called us. My husband had left work to go to his parent's house to watch the news. (At the time we didn't have TV) I was stranded babysitting, and had been before the attacks.
Scott called me. Wayne was dead. We knew it. We never stopped praying, but we knew in our hearts he was dead.
Late in the afternoon/early evening, Nancy's phone rang. We had all avoided calling her in order to keep her line free. With a hopeful heart, she picked up the receiver in her kitchen and chocked out, hello?
A man on the other end cleared his voice. It wasn't Wayne. It wasn't her father. It wasn't our father-in-law. It wasn't Scott.
It was the call that every military wife fears deep in her heart when her husband is sent off to serve his duty to our country.
"Ma'am?"
"yes?"
"This is General Patrick Morris. Am I speaking to the wife of Lieutenant Commander, Wayne Smith?"
With a cry, Nancy let the phone fall to the ground as her knees gave out and she crumpled to a heap on the floor.
One of the neighbor's grabbed the phone and said,
"I'm her friend, who is this?"
After only a moment's pause, she let out a loud whoop! She shouted to Nancy, "He's safe! He's fine! The general didn't mean to scare you. Wayne is too busy to call you right now. He's trying to help the medical team pull out survivors."
What followed was a blur. Very late that night, Wayne returned home. This story does not have a happy ending. He refused to tell Nancy much about what he went through that day; he sticks to that even to this day. He did relay this to her, He, and the medical team he was assisting, was unable to pull out even one person that survived. Nancy's husband was back in her arms, but there were many other military wives going to bed that night without their men.
In your prayers, please remember those widowed women and their children, husbands, the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and friends of those whose lives were taken on September 11th, 2001.
I realize that you may wonder why Wayne just didn't stop to take 30 seconds to call Nancy earlier in the day. He later told us when he heard the explosion, everyone rose up and fled the building. While they were running out, Wayne turned and ran further in. He was stopped by security and told to leave. Wayne however, refused to leave and said that he didn't know a blasted thing about giving medical attention, but he could use his muscle to help move the rubble and he could take orders and he was certain they didn't have a medical team on staff that was prepared to deal with the magnitude of what had just taken place. Which, of course, they didn't. So he was immediately put to use. He worked ceaselessly throughout the entire day. At some point, a general approached him and asked if he would like him (the general) to place a call to his wife to inform her that he was safe. Wayne didn't even think that Nancy would view that call the way she did.
Later, Wayne was awarded a medal of high honor and courage for standing up in the face of a crisis, and willingly risk his life to try and save others.
FYI: I changed the title on this article, but I didn't really have a choice, since the author titled it "September 11th, 2001."
Ping!
I don't have to direct check, Mr. Silverbeck. Your integrity preceeds itself. Great find!!
B U M P
B U M P
Thanks
Misty screen and golfball sized lump in my throat.
Thank you for re-telling the story of this hero.
Thanks much for this Silverback. Some run from the guns, some run to the guns. Bless'ed be this man.
BTTT
THANKS IT IS A WONDERFUL AND WORTHY READ.
Thanks.
Wow - thank you for posting this article.
Thank you.
Thank You very much. It was coffee in one hand, remote on the other- I have dropped the coffee and remote and picked up the kleenex.
NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER QUIT
Thank you Mr.S. I think I'll need the entire box of kleenex today.
Where's the tissues alert my friend?
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