On the morning the Twin Towers fell 10 years ago, our futures became a little less certain, a little more stifled. The anxiety of those first weeks – when it felt like we were living on the brink – has eased, or at least, become so routine that we don’t recognize it for what it is anymore. After all, you can only mourn the loss of life-as-we-know-it for so long before deciding to embrace what is and finding a way to move forward. To understand this is to understand – at least in part – the story of the way students and teachers have adapted to change. The change that was and still is life after 9/11.
I know that I don’t speak for myself when I say that the attack felt personal. It was in our faces, in our homes, on our TVs. And most importantly, inside of our own country – on our soil.
That was the case for two of Lipscomb’s own – David Hughes, former Special Forces and now Director of the Yellow Ribbon program; and Jon Corley, a student that is a part of the program, set to graduate in May.
The attacks on the country hit them so hard – like it did many others – that it was one of the defining reasons they joined the fight against America’s enemies.
Jon was 16 when the attacks happened. He says his experience was very different from what most of us went through when the first plane hit the tower. Jon was home alone that day. He was in bed, sick, and was woken up by a phone call from his mother.
“She told me that I needed to get up and turn on the news,” Corley says. “I was thinking, ‘What is so important that I have to get up and see?’”
He says that he remembers reporters almost acting like they did not know what was really going on – the same feeling that most us felt, too.
“At 16, I was old enough, but it was still very frightening,” he says. “I was talking to my parents, and asking them if we were safe, if there were going to be more attacks, questions like that.”
Most of Jon’s fellow students at Franklin High School had a very different experience. Teachers turned off the TVs, thinking that the images were too telling and too frightening for school aged-children.
“That day had a huge impact on me,” Corley says. “Most of the people I served with joined the army because of what happened on 9/11, just like me.”
Jon says he was at the point in his life that he was starting to think about what he was going to do after he graduated high school, and after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, he made the decision to join the army as soon as he possibly could.
“I was very supportive of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Jon says. “I thought that if I was going to support those decisions that are so controversial, then I needed to do something about it.”
Jon was stationed in North Carolina at the military base in Fort Bragg. There, he served with the 82nd Airborne Division. The first tour that Jon took was a six-month deployment in Iraq.
“It was pre-surge, and a lot of things were very hectic,” he says. “It was a relatively short deployment.”
After that, Private Corley was then sent to Afghanistan, where he was promoted to sergeant and led a four-man fire team. This deployment was much longer–eleven months longer.
“Afghanistan was such a long deployment,” he says. “Everyone got 15 days of vacation, but for 15 months, that was nothing. Psychologically, that just wears on you.”
Being in Afghanistan is much different from being in Iraq, too. Most of us stateside believe that the Middle East is all the same. You know, sand, caves, mountains, desert and compounds.
Jon says that’s not true, though.
“In Afghanistan, there is no real urban environment,” he says. “You are just out in the middle of nowhere for 15 months.”
“But in Iraq,” he says, “it’s beautiful. We were up in the Hind-Kush, and if we had not been there to fight, it would have been a great place to visit.”
Obviously, a lot has changed since Corley joined the armed forces. Now, the military is being a lot more selective, as there is not a big need for troops at the moment. With scale backs and troop withdrawals, the Army is not taking as many soldiers.“I was straight out of high school, we were in Iraq, and [the military] knew there was going to be a need for more men and women.”
Since then, the bonuses that men and women receive after serving their contracts have risen significantly. When Corley started, he received a $20,000 bonus for three years, but when he got out in 2008, people were getting $60,000 for two-year contracts.
Corley does say that he was grateful to come home to a country that was supportive of him and his fellow soldiers, no matter the public’s opinion on the war.
“Coming home to the South, everyone was supportive,” he says. “I have heard stories about Vietnam Vets coming home and getting spat on, but now, what we experience is very different. You have people that don’t agree with the war but still support you.”
Corley says that the situation is getting messy now, though. With younger generations being represented in polls, it is obvious that things are changing.
“Maybe this generation does not remember the day, and it is tougher to make the connection between the war and that day,” he says.
Corley goes on to say that with his generation, “It’s not about the historical connection, but more about the raw emotion behind it.”
It was that sort of raw emotion that motivated David Hughes to enlist into the army…again.
Yes, again.
Hughes started off at The Citadel, where he spent four years before graduating in 1996. While in school, he dreamed of joining the FBI and working counter terrorism. After graduating, he was sent to Hawaii where he worked as a Special Platoon leader and then worked with a program called SOCPAC – Special Operations Command, Pacific.
If Hughes had stayed in the army, he would have been sent to Washington for Special Forces selection, leaving his new bride behind. Instead, he decided to stay on the island, leaving the army to work in the Honolulu police department.
Then, 9/11 happened.
“Soon as 9/11 happened, it hit me so hard that I told my wife that I was going to go back in,” he says. “I could not sit back and watch that happen.”
That very moment, Hughes called D.C. and told them to put him on orders — he was “ready to go back in.”
Hughes says what many other people say about 9/11. That it changed their lives. For him, though, it put him back in the Army. But that ended in 2008 when he was injured during a mission in Afghanistan.
“We hit an IED, and it shattered my L2 vertebrate into about eight pieces,” Hughes says. “By the time I got to Germany, I was paralyzed.”
Hughes says that he could not move his big toe on either foot. In Germany, Hughes underwent an emergency operation, stabilizing him, putting rods and screws into his spine. He describes that his vertebrate was “just floating” and that it was reconstructed with bone taken out of his hip.
Now, part of Hughes’ spine is one solid piece. With that, he says he has permanent nerve damage.
“I could have stayed in and worked at a desk,” he says. “That’s not what I signed up to do.”
Then, he and his wife, Pam, decided to start a new life. Shortly thereafter, Hughes and his wife were called to Nashville, where he is now the coordinator for the Yellow Ribbon program, which has been very successful.
The Yellow Ribbon program offers free tuition to veterans if they qualify for 100 percent of the Post 9/11 GI Bill.
Along with Jon Corley, there are currently more than 100 veterans enrolled in the program. Since 2009, the program has experienced a 46 percent growth rate. And now, in 2011, the Yellow Ribbon program has partnered with Sentinels of Freedom. Working with the Sentinels, Lipscomb will help severely wounded veterans cope with their new lifestyle, as well as paying their way through school.
“It’s things like [the Sentinel program] that make this job enjoyable,” says Hughes.
Hughes says that he is confident that over 75 percent that are part of Lipscomb’s Yellow Ribbon program joined the Armed Forces because of 9/11. And he and Corley both believe that day was, and still is, something more than just a day that we’ll remember.
“If you go back and look at the first person that was killed in Afghanistan as a result of the attacks on 9/11, you’ll see a lot of similarities between he and I,” said Hughes. “We both grew up in the South, both were Christians, and we both attended the Church of Christ.”
We’re all connected in some way to that great tragedy.
If you look at history, every 30 or 40 years, some historical event comes along. And this is ours. I ask you, if you are going to remember 9/11, think of the heroes. The first responders, the heroes on United Flight 93, the firemen that were at Ground Zero for weeks searching for lives, the stories that we hear every year about men and women that were saving their friends before saving themselves. I ask you to remember that and not make it a sad experience. Remember how this country stood tall in a time of adversity and terror, and remember that this country did not tire, did not falter and did not fail.
Dean Scott McDowell has organized several things that Lipscomb students can take part in. Students have been asked to join Hands On Nashville on Saturday, Sept. 10 to serve the community as a part of Nashville Firefighter’s Day. On Sunday, there will a communion offered in Bison Square. The service will be led by Jake Burton and Campus Ministry, starting at 9 p.m. On Monday, there will be a discussion panel in the Dorris Swang Chapel in Ezell. The four-person panel will feature Lipscomb professor Guy Vanderpool, David Hughes, professor Howard Miller and professor Ken Durham. The event starts at 7 p.m. Finally, The Gathering be commemorating the lives lost and affected by the tragedies with a time of prayer and reflection.