Planes, Trains & Heroes: A Story of Warner Robins and the Robins Region

AFTERWORD
The past should teach us how to handle the future: “I was on base, teaching for Georgia Military
College in Building 905, on the morning of September 11, 2001. Someone, I couldn’t tell you who,
stopped by my office and said, ‘You need to come to the T.V. now.’ I arrived in one of the base offices
in time to see the second airliner hit the World Trade Center. Shortly thereafter, someone said, ‘We
have ten minutes to get off the base before they lock it down.’ We heard reports, and it doesn’t matter
now whether they were true or not, that a commercial airliner was headed for Robins and that the
authorities could not get a response from the onboard crew. The day was as intense as any I’ve
experienced. I spent it glued to the television and that is not my normal mode of operation. At a
meeting in downtown Macon the next day, I remember that people were nicer than before, more
polite; it seemed that cultural differences faded. We really were the United States for a while. Two
weeks later, when I returned to work and drove through the new serpentine access to Robins Air
Force Base, I did so beneath a guard holding a machine gun atop a Hummer. The moral of this story
is that when the worst happened, RAFB and the City of Warner Robins were ready. I was one of
thousands of non-essential personnel who were off the base in ten minutes. The sleepy and primarily
Civil Service base came to immediate military readiness. The city and surrounding areas focused on
plans for assisting in any way possible. Then, Georgia Military College had a small extension campus
on base serving about 200 students. After 9/11, the City of Warner Robins partnered with us to place
a city campus on land once used for military housing as part of an urban redevelopment plan.
Growth exploded. Today, Dublin and Eastman extension campuses work under the Warner Robins
campus with a student population approaching 2,000.
The reclaimed military housing area is a modern business park with ponds, walking trails, labeled
plant life, and its own population of wild geese. One of the trails passes a beautiful olive tree
honoring Barbara Shaheen, another proactive citizen who left a scholarship to build Warner Robins
for the future.
Middle Georgia is an area that adapts, overcomes, and succeeds.
72 ✦ PLANES, TRAINS & HEROES