10 Years Down the Road

As a child, I remember watching TV nonstop when JFK was assassinated.  The very word was mesmerizing.  TV anchormen were somber, music played all the time.  These were the days when TV channels signed off at night.  We lived right outside of NYC.  The biggest story Headline in my lifespan was, “Where were you when the lights went out in NYC?”  The media proclaimed that life would be different because of all of the children that would be born in 9 months.  They knew.

President Kennedy’s funeral changed the way we focused on television.  It took our emotions and as a nation let all grieve together, attend the funeral procession, see a toddler Patrick salute his Dad’s casket, watch and hear a horse clomp down the streets of Washington DC, enter the Rotunda and view the graveside service.  As a nation, we were stunned, quieted, and disturbed.

Just short of four decades later, 9/11 crackled our daily functions.  The television flipped on to CNN nonstop.  NYC was burning, smoldering and crumbling… people were fleeing for their lives… the plane went down in PA… finally the Pentagon took a plane.  The television was a mainstay of focus that September. 
Life on a military installation clamped down.  Fences were fortified, road blocks were adjusted, security was on the forefront.  Security was placed and handled with determination to be at the front line of all measures; of all thoughts, all actions.