I gave blood, drove to New Jersey, forgot my uniform (we didn’t wear them much before that day; mostly just for the annual photo) and then spent the next eighteen hours organizing the evacuation by watercraft, even jet skis, of those trapped in south Manhattan.
I am perpetually caught between the Marine’s voice and the monk’s voice in my consciousness. That day, the Marine was winning the argument. In the weeks that followed, as I helped with burial after burial, it was the monk who prevailed. Barely.