To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless acts of a single day. ~ Sir Winston Churchill

September 11, 2001 was an evening affair for our family. We were stationed in Okinawa and surviving cabin fever through the third or fourth day of a typhoon (Nari) that had stalled and turned back around to drench us with winds and rain more than once.

Everyone had already went to bed for the evening when I felt the pressing need to check email. When I logged on, one of Mike's high school friends sent me a yahoo chat message telling me to turn the TV on, that there was some kind of plane crash or something that was looking unusual. I turned AFN on in time to see the second plane hit. I woke Mike up and he came out in time to see the Pentagon hit. He sat with his uniform on and bags packed by the front door all night. He knew that his group of Marines, who had just returned from a 6 month deployment in mid-August, were the most ready trained Marines to go. He was right. They were gone three weeks later. A second typhoon that their ship attempted to plow through detoured them to Australia when its heavy winds damaged all of the helicopter rotors. Mike arrived back home from that deployment the day before Thanksgiving. In the end, I view the combined typhoons as a miracle that kept my husband, Mike, a United States Marine, safe and sound in those early days!

The next morning, the 12th in Okinawa but still the 11th in the states, showed that the winds and rain had finally cleared but we were still confined to our apartments because the base had not sounded the all clear signal. A local Okinawan man who lived directly outside the gate (which we could see from our balcony) decided to burn his trash. I will never forget the site of a Humvee with mounted gun sitting on the road with his gun pointed in the direction of the mans yard. The base was small.... I could walk the main drag in 10 minutes! I didn't even know they had Humvee at that base!

Bases overseas were considered easy targets and we were on high alert constantly for many months to come. Many of our friends at the Air Force base could not even leave their base to attend our church for several weeks, maybe it was even months. Many of us had husbands that deployed quickly. Many of my friends had their husbands gone for far longer than mine was. They were wonderful examples to me of strength, and patriotism.

I will never forget those days... will you?

In Christ,

Sallie