(This is a true story)
"Somebody love me once but I cannot remember why..."
-Reel Big Fish
(I admit that this woulda been a great story for 9/11 but I really didn't think of it and I really had been focusing on the last story. This story is by no means untold by me. This story always comes up during "where were you during 9/11" stories. This story is directly related to 9/11 and my "goings ons/whereabouts". I also would tell this story when people ask if my wife always hated me. Anyways here's the story and I hope you like it...)
Before I get into the story at hand I need to tell you a back-story. I joined the Army after deciding that I had no other way to support my family. I wanted to provide them with EVERTHING and the window I was waiting on was closed on my fingers. I received the news that these people wouldn't hire me but would hire liars. At the time I was an Armed Courier and when I heard the news I got mad, well furious was a better word for it, and realizing that I did not want to be the guy who failed at providing for his family, I returned to the vault. There I turned in my money and my vehicle, then I drove straight to the recruiter. My pistol was privately owned so I still had it with me when I arrived. After a while I told the recruiters that I was armed and refused to stow it in my car. When they asked me too I said that I would just come back later and they asked if I had a badge and credentials, which I did, I showed them and they were cool with it. I kept my gun/Badge and the enlisted me. They told me that carrying a weapon there was prohibited but the sign was broken and awaiting replacement.
Fast forward to 9/11:
I was home from basic training. As a reward for doing well and qualifying top 16% , I was told that I would get to stay home two extra weeks on top of my leave to do recruiter duty. I worked at the very recruiting station I signed up at.
My wife and I were asleep that fateful morning. The phone rang super early and she answered it. Weapon X, was on the line spouting off about how a pilot crashed a plane into a tower. My wife asked her if we could talk about it later and hung up on her. Then she went back to sleep.
I don't remember when but the phone rang again. This time it was my Sergeant. She passed the phone to me and when I said hello they asked if I was ok, then they went on to tell me of the terror attacks. They told me to come to work now. I told them that I would shave and get into uniform and the said "No" just to come in as I was, they did not want me to look military. I said ok and hung up the phone.
By then my wife was freaking out. People and her family were calling the cell phone asking if we were ok and telling what they have heard about the attacks. They even told her that the terrorists may be targeting Soldiers and killing them .My parents were up watching the news when I walked out of my room to tell them.
By then I was already dressed, I still remember what I was wearing: A Green Day Shirt, big baggy stonewashed jeans and DC shoes, I was still a skateboarder then so I still dressed like one. Before I walked out of the room my wife asked me if I was going to take a gun with me. A few months before she had bought me a H+k USP .40 with a stainless steel slide. A very pretty,High performance handgun, I would eventually carry that gun for duty. I told her "no" I didn't need one, I just gotta check in and then they would let me go home.
So I walked out to my parents asking question and I had no answers. I told em I'd go to work and find out what was going on and let them know.
I turned around and yelled to my wife "I LOVE YOU!" as I turned the door knob to leave. I heard her say my name and I stopped in my tracks to turn around to face her. There was my beautiful wife walking around the corner, face wet and red because she was sobbing and in her hands was the pistol she bought me, resting in her palms in its leather scabbard. Tears in her eyes she raised the pistol to me and said in a low voice...
"please take it...I don't want anything to happen to you..."
and all I could do is stand there and stare at her. My beautiful wife, the woman I loved enough to marry, the woman I wanted to spend forever with, crying her eyes out because she thought I could die. She was crying her eyes out because I wasn't armed, She was sobbing her eyes out because she wanted me to take my weapon with me and at that point I remembered my duties as a husband. I knew I could get in trouble but she was more important.
"Yes..."
and I took the pistol from her and she threw her arms around me and cried.
When she was done crying I put the pistol on in front of her. Thank God my shirt was large, it covered up the gun quite nicely. I then proceeded to work and when I got there all I had to do was be briefed and given safety rules. I got nervous about the weapon so I said to my Sergeant this:
" Hey! do you remember that thing I had on me when I signed the line?"
"Yeah"
" Well, I got one now. My wife wanted me to take one."
he replied this:
"oh, you brought just one? you should see the station commander..."
and if on cue she walked in the room and asked what we were talking about.
" the young Private here has a gun on him."
she replied:
"Oh, just one?"
and she opened her warm up jacket and revealed no less than four handguns tucked in her waistband. All I could think was "Fucking band geek!"
I finally got to go home and me and my wife spent the day together. We went grocery shopping and I still had the gun on. I wore it the whole day...
When my wife left me the first things to go was that pistol. To this day I still feel bad about it. I really think that me letting the gun go was this story. She loved me soooo much that she cried for me to take it but then she could leave the way she did. She bought me the gun because she loved me, she told me so when she bought it and when she left I couldn't bear to look at it anymore so I sold it. Then I used the money as a down payment for an apartment for me and my son. With the remaining money I bought a tactical flashlight that I still have/carry to this day.
In the end the weapon that my wife brought to me in tears that day did do its job, She gave it to me to protect me and keep me safe. I carried it to protect her and my son, but in the end the pistol gave me and my son a start on a new life.
The Towers fell and lives were lost and lives were changed. My own disaster would happen a few years later when someone else convinced my beloved Shelly to leave me for their arms.
So I believe the answer to be "No", my wife didn't always hate me.
-B
(Just like there are fates worse than death, there are even worse ways to lose people. But in this way its worse, you see what they have become or you feel the pain of not being part of their lives anymore. Either way all you can do is just sit there, watch and wish that you had thought to bring a coke and popcorn. I say it a million times and I will say it past I'm dead..." the person you love may not always be there.." who cares how and why they left because nothing will ever change the fact that YOU LOVED THEM, right or wrong, for better or for worse, YOU LOVED THEM, but be with them and love them, take the time and the love to build memories and keepsakes that will remind you that yes you loved them and maybe, just maybe they loved you too and all was well in the world and that will comfort you when they are no longer there. That's why I tell you these stories, not so I can wallow in self pity and drown in sorrow. I tell them because they remind me of a happier time, a time when I was whole. I can look into a pretty girls greenish/copper/hazel(whatever) eyes and remember the beauty of loving and being loved...that and they do sell single serving microwave popcorn that fits in your pocket for just such and emergency...luv ya, -B)
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