Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands and was first inhabited around 30,000 BC. That is before Christ. It is a culture rich in heritage and tradition with a majority of the population believing in either Buddahism or Shinto. Within large cities such as Kyoto (the ancient capital) and Tokyo, you can find ancient temples that housed Samurai warriors still standing. The amazing thing about these temples is their location - within the hustle and bustle of a busy city of 30 million people, but within the temple gates, you feel as if you are within a place of peace and harmony, oblivious to the sounds of everyday life going on outside the gates. The noise and chaos of everyday life miraculously disappears.
I arrived in Tokyo, Japan on a United flight on September 9, 2001. I was travelling on business and had been looking forward to the trip with trepidation as it was my first trip outside of the U.S. I had this fear, that I only voiced to Jeff, that I would arrive in Japan and not be able to get back home for some reason. The day before I left, I had gone to the bank to get travelers checks and distinctly remember seeing on the TV inside PEFCU that the U.S. military base had been put on alert in Okinawa, Japan. I did not put much thought into it as it seemed as if there were alerts periodically all over the world for one reason or another. And the reporters were not discussing it, it was a just a blurb scrolling at the bottom of the screen.
The first two days in Japan were filled with customer visits and getting used to using the train that most Japanese used to get to and from work. The average commute in Japan is around an hour via train. Not many Japanese own cars either. In the morning, I would call Jeff at work and it would be the afternoon of the previous day in Lafayette. We would talk and I would get ready for the day's meetings. In the early morning hours of September 12, 2001 (3:30 am Tokyo, 2:30 pm 9/11/01 Lafayette time), I was awakened by a phone call from the VP of my business unit at work. Anne told me that the Towers had been hit by planes, another plane had hit the Pentagon, another was downed in Pennsylvania, and that the towers had collapsed. I remember not comprehending what she was telling me and can only imagine how stupid I sounded on the other end of the phone line. She also told me that my dad had been trying to get ahold of me. Turns out that my dad was a bit panicked and could not find the itenerary that I had given to my parents with all my contact information. Mom had put it on the refrigerator with all of the other important information and in his haste, he had overlooked it.
For anyone who has never travelled in Japan, there are not many English speaking channels on TV. There was CNN worldwide which kept showing the attack on the U.S. by the terrorists. It came to the point that I could not watch it anymore and spent my evenings watching a local sumo wrestling tournament in Tokyo and calling the company travel agency to determine flight status into the United States. My fear was slowly coming true in my mind - I was stuck in a foreign country where I could not speak the language and could not eat the food for what appeared to be an indeterminate amount of time. Home never seemed so far away before.
It goes without saying that you don't appreciate the things you have until they are taken from you. I have always been proud to be an American and have felt privileged to live in the United States. I had been enjoying my trip abroad, but it lost its excitement in the early morning hours of Sept. 12. In the week and half that I was in Japan after Sept. 11, 2001, I missed the golden color of the corn fields at sunset, the flat, seemingly endless roads that make up Indiana, and the relaxed atmosphere of "city life" in Lafayette. Tokyo and Kyoto were bustling cities - much like Chicago and New York - with skyscrapers lining the busy streets. It became chlostrophobic to me, like they were closing in and I just wanted to go home. So the next time you think there is nothing to do in Indiana or Lafayette, I invite you to watch the sunset over a field of corn, watch the baby calves on U.S. 52 in Boone county walk with their mothers in the pasture, or marvel in the windmills in Benton county.
Still to this day, I cannot watch the coverage of the attacks without thinking about my time in Japan and the phone call home to my dad. I can still hear him breaking down in tears when I said, "Hi Dad." This 10 year anniversary has been exceptionally hard with all of the news coverage. I feel as if I was in another world when 9/11 happened, detached from it all. There is still a lot of information that I don't know. I did not realize that fighter jets were scrambeled to protect Air Force One while President Bush was flying around the country until 4 days ago. These jets were to put themselves between any harm and the President. I still do not understand all of the timing of securing the President and the joint chiefs of staff in various locations. I thank Jeff for his patience in answering my questions and helping me to understand what went in the days after the attacks. One statement he told me after I returned home was how strange it was not to see or hear a plane in the sky. I still cannot imagine that. I have heard 9/11 referred to as the Pearl Harbor the 21st century. It is ironic to me that I was in the very country that attacked Pearl Harbor the same day as my homeland was attacked.
One of Japan's names is the "Land of the Rising Sun" as it is identified in Imperial correspondence with the Chinese Sui dynasty (581 AD - 618 AD) in referring to its eastern position relative to China. However, a rising sun also indicates a new day which can be defined as literally the start of a new day or figuratively as the beginning of a new chapter in one's life. A new day started for everyone on a global scale on Sept. 11, 2001 at approximately 8:30 am EST. A new way of life was ushered in for everyone. In the days after the attacks, Americans were united in their spirit and actions in ensuring that this would not happen again and that the terrorists would know that we had not been broken. We have not been broken, we may have been slowed a bit with the recession, but we are still Americans and we are still free. So my prayer tonight will include, as always, a prayer for greater understanding amongst people so that we never have another attack like this anywhere in the world. I will also pray for all of the people who are working to ensure that we have the freedom to disagree with our leaders and engage in debate about the issues of our times. But most of all I will pray that Jacob never has to endure a rising sun like we exprienced in 2001.
