I wanted to write this past weekend. I really did, but I just couldn’t do it. It would have been too hard emotionally. Like many others, the days surrounding September 11th are often filled with emotion. For so many, including myself, September 11th is a day that is ingrained in our memories – memories of watching as the second plane struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center, hearing as the news began filtering in about a third plane hitting the Pentagon and the fourth plane going down in a field in Pennsylvania. Americans all over the world sat glued to their televisions watching the horror unfold back home as the Twin Towers fell.
I was one of those, watching from Italy with my Italian family, and knowing that life as we knew it would never be the same. The horror, the sadness, and then the anger that I felt propelled me to make some changes in my career – switching from being a Navy Dental Tech to a Navy Master-at-Arms (the Navy’s equivalent of Military Police). I went from a cushy Monday – Friday job in an air-conditioned building to standing post in the hot sun and pouring rain while toting an M-16. I remember one of my Dental Tech friends texting me during a particularly rainy period and asking me how I liked the job now, and I replied, “For adventure, just add water!” I loved it. I finally felt like I was doing something important. I spent the next ten years wearing cammies and working the road until my retirement. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. There was a camaraderie that I never felt when I was a Dental Tech. It is that solidarity and amity that I miss the most from the Navy.
September 11th caused me to make some changes in my career, but what most people don’t know is that September 10th is a day that for the past 26 years, has been one of reflection and remembrance for me and my family as well. On that ordinary Tuesday, in 1996, during my first tour in Italy, my dad called me at 9:35 that night to tell me that there had been a terrible tragedy at home that day. My uncle Lee and my Great Aunt Sally had been murdered that day, less than a quarter of a mile from my parents’ house. That was it. That was the only news I was given, and I was lost. I was alone. I was confused, and I was so isolated that I couldn’t fathom what was going on back home… surely this was not real!
I spent the next couple of hours trying to reach my closest friend from Memphis, finally calling her parents’ house and catching her just as she walked in the door. I broke the news to Christi, and after taking a few minutes to sit with the horror of it, she asked what she could do. I asked her to record every news story and clip every newspaper article about the murder that she could. I needed to know something – anything!
Two days later, in a sleep deprived haze, I made my way to Memphis to be with my family. I had to borrow appropriate clothes for the memorial service because who actually keeps funeral attire on hand at 26 years old? When I landed in Memphis, Christi picked me up at the airport and we made our way to the lake, to Mom and Dad’s house. My brother had flown in earlier that day. All the little chicks were coming home to roost, and not for a good reason either, but at least we were together as we prepared to say “goodbye” to two members of our family. Christi gave me the envelope with the videotape of the news stories – the murders lead the primetime news on every channel in Memphis – and the articles she had clipped. I still have that envelope.
Sally was the daughter of a prominent Memphis family, and Lee was not only the grandson of that family, he was a blues guitarist – famous on the Memphis music scene in his own right. We were lucky that he had finished recording an album just a month prior to his death. It gave us all something to remember him by, and as one of the reviews of the album said, “Turn it up, and dance around. Nothing would make Lee Baker happier.” I do that still, and when it came time to choose music for Grubby’s service, I knew I needed Lee to bring him home, so I chose Lee’s version of “Let It Shine on Me”.
For years, I tried to make sense of why this happened. I went to the Crittenden County (AR) Courthouse in Marion and reviewed the court documents. For years, I tried to understand how a then-15 year old kid could do something like this to the people his family had known for years! I think that it was a robbery gone wrong. I never could understand it. I never could make any sense of it. I never could because I don’t have that kind of hatred, that kind of evil inside of me. Some people are just bad seeds, I guess.
Unfortunately, two years ago, this story finally ended. I wish I could tell you that it was a happy ending, but it wasn’t. Once again, our family tragedy made the news when the man who had killed Lee and Sally returned after being released from prison and killed Sally’s daughter, Martha. I refuse to write his name, but I will never forget it. Before he could be arrested at the scene, he jumped into a very cold lake and did not resurface. Divers found him a couple of hours later, and the story ended. I’ve read the stories that have been published online and in People Magazine. I’ve saved the episode of People Magazine Investigates that features my mother and my cousin talking about these events that changed the landscape of our family forever. I went and walked around the family graves after the house where Martha was murdered – a house I spent many Easters, Thanksgivings, Fourth of Julys, and Christmases at as a child – was razed.
I wanted to write this weekend, but I just couldn’t… but I know that my loved ones were shining on me.
So Very Sad.