America
Mourns Live Report from the USS Density Reunion 2001 (written from our hotel room using a Macbook and posted online daily) |
I went down for breakfast at the Embassy Suites Hotel and was presented with a scene that no-one could have predicted. There were many people glued to one or other of two large TVs in the lobby area of the hotel. CNN was on one TV and NBC was on another. I could sense that something extraordinary was unfolding, but no-one on Earth could have predicted what was going to happen.
By this time in New York, two airliners had been
hijacked and crashed into the two World Trade Centre buildings and another
into the Pentagon. While watching the NBC transmission, behind one of
their reporters, live on-air, the first building collapsed. The rest is,
sadly, already history.
The events were naturally covered live by CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC. In the
bar area, which usually had wall-to-wall sports programmes, we had the
unnerving opportunity to see the unfolding nightmare from the point of
view of all US networks and local Dallas TV stations.
(Left) flags everywhere fly at half-mast. (Right) Hotel guests watch in disbelief as the awful events unfold on the TV news.
Dallas is on full alert, as there is strategic military presence
in the area, and Dallas/Fort Worth is a major airport. Hotels, car rental companies
- simply everyone - is pulling together to see how they can help those who
needs to travel to somewhere else, or need to stay put until flight restrictions are lifted.
All planes in the US are grounded, so the USS Density Reunion has had to change strategy. Tanya Baugus, who is in charge of organising the event, has already contacted most of the people who were due to come. A few who are so far away from Dallas that it would be impossible for them to get to there other than by plane, have had to say that they're not coming. However, Tanya's found that even after so many years, the old WWII fighting spirit is still there with a vengeance! Several people have said that there's no way that they'll miss their reunion, and will set off by road at the appropriate time. There's no holding them back...
The beautiful sunrise over Dallas belied the terrible reality of the previous day's events, that maybe for many people hadn't sunk in yet. Each guest was greeted by the horrific front page of their complimentary newspaper. (Below, left) At breakfast, faces were sombre, and many hadn't slept much. TVs were reporting the only good news so far, that six people were found alive in the rubble. Everyone is still in shock, some turning away from the TV when the horrific crashes are shown yet again. |
It's not easy to think
straight with the shock waves from Tuesday's terrible events permeating everything
in the USA, but Chris and I wanted to add some words to his initial reports.
We have often referred on this website to the Radio London Family. The members
of the USS Density crew and their loved ones have been holding reunions since 1965,
and they too have become one big, close family. None of them had met us before,
but they have welcomed us warmly to join their extended family, as we welcome
them to Radio London's. Our Density Reunion organiser, Tanya Baugus,
her husband R.V. and her parents, Marie and La Verne have been absolutely
wonderful to us. Their extreme affection, kindness and invaluable sense of humour
has got us through a harrowing time, when home seems further away than just
an ocean.
Yesterday, we were taken to visit the John F Kennedy museum in downtown Dallas,
where the flags outside flew half-mast to proclaim another tragedy of global
magnitude. Someone who had found themselves marooned in Dallas, unable to get
a flight home, had visited the museum and filled a page of the memorial book
with his personal observations and feelings about the horrors of the assassination
and how that long-ago event related to all that his country was suffering now.
My own thoughts on the subject were so fragmented that I could not have expressed
them as eloquently as this unknown person. This appalling terrorism is of course,
an attack, not only on the United States of America, but on all compassion and
humanity; yet, for me, being half-American, I could not help but think, yes,
this is MY country under attack. Everyone who read that page in the book was
moved by the sentiments expressed there. We were grateful to that unknown writer
for saying what we could not, and were only sorry that photographs were not
allowed in the museum, so that we could take that page and its sentiments away
with us.
Amazing stories are happening all around us. Everyone we meet, even strangers
in the shopping mall, seems to have something new to add to the picture. One
of the hotel managers said that we often think of the US as being so vast, but
incredibly, many people you meet either knew someone involved in the tragedies,
or have some small connection with the areas where they occured.
The USS Density Reunion banquet goes ahead tonight, with a reduced number of people,
but unbowed in spirit. These men have survived a fearful war aboard a minesweeper
and they continue to share a comradeship that remained, like their ship, the
Mighty Little D, intact through dark days and unknown horrors. They will not
easily be intimidated by terrorists.
Two of Radio London's original backers, Ben Toney and Tom Danaher, are due to
arrive this afternoon for the evening's banquet and they and ourselves will
present the Radio London story. Norman St John phoned us yesterday from England.
He was stuck at Heathrow, hoping to catch a flight arriving later today (Friday) but now it seems
that sadly, there will not be any flights leaving the UK as yet. Locals cannot get used to the emptiness of the skies and the eerie lack
of aircraft noise from the massive airport. Yesterday, we watched from our tour
bus as one of the first planes landed at Dallas/Fort Worth airport, as if we
were observers of a unique, instead of an everyday event.
We are among friends and we shall have our reunion. The wartime spirit of the
Density, like life, goes on.