By Susanna Ray
Herald Writer
I was somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean when the United States and Britain started bombing targets in Afghanistan.
As missiles and bombs flew through the air thousands of miles away, I sat in contented oblivion, watching movies, dozing, eating peanuts and making small talk with my seatmate — anything to keep my mind off the thought of what I would do if someone were to suddenly stand up with a box cutter and order everyone to the back of the plane.
I was relieved to finally be on my way home after all the uncertainty of the past few days and weeks. And yet, part of me wished I’d remained safe and stuck in Germany.
Swissair, the airline I had flown to Europe when I left Everett in July on a journalism fellowship, went bankrupt in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and despite a limited government bailout, had canceled my flight home. I was pushy at the airport and managed to get out a day later on Austrian Airlines flights to Vienna, then Washington, D.C.
I didn’t know war had begun until I touched down in our nation’s capital. My taxi driver was from Pakistan. He turned on the news and we listened in silence — what was there to say? —- for the half-hour drive to my friend’s house just a few blocks from the Pentagon. I lost count of all the American flags I saw on the way.
My parents were relieved when I called and told them I’d reached American soil. But when we hung up, I wondered if that was supposed to mean I was safer or in more danger? The attacks have turned normal assumptions upside down.
My friend took me to see the gaping black hole in the Pentagon, and I was surprised to find that it looked just like it does on TV. Reality somehow wasn’t any less nightmarish or unreal than the movielike images we’ve been watching for a month. I took pictures, but I don’t think I’ll believe them, either.
While waiting for another flight to Seattle the next day, I stayed the night with friends who live with U.S. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to their right and District of Columbia Police Chief Charles Ramsey to their left. But somehow the sight of a Secret Service Suburban at one end of the parking lot and a police car at the other end was more spooky than reassuring.
Ditto for the sight of armed National Guardsmen standing at attention with their automatic rifles at Dulles Airport.
When I changed planes in Chicago, a baggage handler accidentally rammed the plane with a piece of equipment, puncturing a hole in it. By that point, I was so tired I merely lifted my head when I felt the crash, paused to make sure there was no explosion or other ensuing mayhem, then slumped again until the captain told us we had to get off and board another plane. Thankfully, because of all the canceled flights, they had plenty of extra aircraft sitting around.
I was also blissfully ignorant of the drama unfolding at about the same time on another plane headed to Chicago, which was being escorted by two F-16s after a passenger tried to force his way into the cockpit.
When I finally got home, everyone kept asking about all the security I must have encountered on the journey. After all, I’d traveled through four airports before arriving at Sea-Tac.
Yes, lines to get through metal detectors were longer than normal. But the security measures were scarily inconsistent, seeming to go to extremes in certain areas while oddly lax in others.
In Germany, they took away the nail file and clippers I had in my cosmetics bag. Two months ago, when I flew from Duesseldorf to Berlin and security officials confiscated the pepper spray my father had given me, not even allowing me to repack it in my checked suitcase, I protested loudly and strongly. This time, I didn’t even whimper as I signed the confiscation consent form. Sept. 11 had completely erased any self-righteous indignation when it came to potentially dangerous items in my possession.
But on my Austrian Airlines flight, I was served lunch with metal cutlery, including a serrated knife. Then, in Chicago, where I bought breakfast, they gave me toast with packets of butter and jam but nothing to spread it with. A sign said they weren’t allowed to dispense plastic knives anymore.
And even though my carry-on bag was checked at four different airports, no one caught the big metal mirror in my makeup case that had broken on the Berlin trip and was stuck in its holder in shards the shape and sharpness of large knife blades.
Despite attempts to distract myself, I thought about that often during my 20 hours in the air. Someone who really wants to can make a weapon out of anything, and there are plenty of people these days who really want to.
It’s true — the attacks stripped away Americans’ sense of security and proved our government can’t always protect us. But hasn’t that always been the case? I could have survived a three-day journey from Germany in the midst of the beginning of war, only to be killed in an I-5 car crash on the way home from Sea-Tac.
Yes, life has changed since Sept. 11. And it’s also the same. We should appreciate every blessed moment of it.
Herald writer Susanna Ray just returned from working in Duesseldorf, Germany, on an Arthur F. Burns Fellowship for promoting cross-cultural professional ties between German and U.S. journalists. She can be reached at ray@heraldnet.com.
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