A day I will never forget.

September 16, 2013, I came to work much like I do every Monday morning.  It was a normal Monday, I wasn’t really feeling like work because I don’t like Monday’s – Zoey had actually asked me to stay home with her that day and I told her I couldn’t.  I still am wishing I did.  I was sitting in my friend’s office and we were talking about the budget.  I needed numbers from her and she had been dragging her feet on getting them to me so I was giving her crap.  Someone said in the hallway, “Shots were just fired in 197, we are lockdown.”  It was sort of like a “What!?!” moment.  I kind of felt like everything was in slow motion after that.  I called my old boss immediately because his wife works over there.  I wanted to make sure he had talked to her and she was out – which thankfully, she was.  We started hearing sirens, it seemed like in a matter of minutes, and then the Yard was crawling with police.  This was real.  This was happening.  We had a shooter on the Yard.  He was shooting people.  I wanted to go home.    

Shortly after that, a cop came in our building asking us to line up.  We had to give him our names and the whole time we could hear his walkie talkie saying there may be a second shooter in the building right next to ours.  Again, this was real.  This was happening.  Now there are multiple shooters.  I wanted to go home.  He told us to stay put, not to open our doors for anyone except officers, and stay away from the windows.  Twenty minutes later, we had more cops in our building, telling us we were being evacuated.  Thirty seconds later (or so it seemed), we were being escorted out of our building to another one way across the Yard. 

Once we got into that building, we sat there.  We had no access to the outside world.  Most of us didn’t have our cell phones because we aren’t supposed to have them in our building.  We had no idea what was going on.  Most of us hadn’t eaten because this all took place early in the AM.  There was no food.  We were hungry.  The people that actually worked in the building started bringing out their snacks they kept in their desks for us.  It was nice, but not filling.  Around 5PM the FBI came in to interview everyone, they informed us they would be offering free metro because we weren’t going to be able to go to our cars, and busing us to the Nats stadium.  Around 6PM we reached the Nats stadium and there we were greeted by Red Cross.  Red Cross is amazing – donate to them, seriously.  They met us with a smile, offered us food and drinks.  It was like REAL food too.  I didn’t take any because my only motive was to get on the metro and go home to see my family. 

Joe picked me and my friend up from the metro; we dropped her at her house and then got Chinese food.  When we got home, I ate.  I don’t even think I tasted my food.  I already knew the Yard was closed the next day and I was emotionally drained even though the events still didn’t seem real.  The news released that there were some casualties, but no names.  So off to bed I went and I slept.  I slept hard.

The next morning, Joe went to work and called me around 9.  I was still sleeping, but of course woke up to the phone ringing.  He told me that they released some of the names, so I logged on to the computer and started reading.  I got to the third name: Sylvia Frasier.  I stopped.  I knew her.  I worked with her.  I knew her.  No.  This was real.  This really did happen.  We had a shooter on the Yard.  He was shooting people.  He killed my colleague.  I cried.  I cried, hard.  It finally sunk in.  This was real.  As the day went on, more and more names came out that I knew.  Six out of the 12 people killed, I knew in some way or another.  My heart hurt, it still does.

My old boss called to check on me.  He knew I would know some of the names.  I cried on the phone with him, which I am usually a very private person so he was taken back, but he just kept talking.  It was then he told me that the shooter was actually in our building helping with the tech refresh.  He was actually probably going to be in our building that day to continue with tech refresh.  We also talked about how much all of us work over in 197 for this reason or the other.  The floor that the shooter actually picked to start on is the floor that we work out of and that is why I knew all those folks.  When I worked in the LAN Office, I was literally on that floor at least 3 to 4 times a week, in the AREA that the shooter decided to shoot up.  Surreal.  It literally could have been any of us.  We could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

I didn’t reference the shooter’s name in this on purpose.  He doesn’t deserve to be remembered.  He was a coward that had serious issues.  I don’t understand why the news keeps saying over and over again about how he was at 9-11.  How can you be there, trying to help innocent people and then thirteen years later instill the same terror that those people had in a different group of innocent people?  No.  I don’t care that he was there.  It doesn’t give him an excuse.  He should have gotten help right when he started thinking crazy.  He doesn’t deserve to be in the news.  I don’t want to hear his story.  I want to hear and see the stories of the twelve people whose lives were cut short that day.  That is who I care about.    

Last night, they released some footage of the shooter.  I am not sure why the FBI or the media felt compelled to release the images of the shooter going through and stalking the people in building 197, but the whole thing seems very insensitive to me.  People are trying to bury their loved ones, they are trying to get back to a semi-normal life, and to release those videos just seems wrong.  It brings back the fear, it brings back all those emotions to the surface, it was completely too soon.