Feb 2024. Blues Vol 40 No. 2

“Part of it was standing and
another part was just missing.
It was unreal to see half a plane
sitting in the middle of a building.”
Walton was part of the search
and rescue mission and stayed
for several days, working 12 to
18-hour shifts. Officers slept on
scene in cots and sleeping bags.
“You think about what you’ve
seen, what you saw,” says Walton.
“With time the images kind
of fade away, but for the first five
years after, I didn’t want to talk
about it. When I smell jet fuel,
that smell takes me back.”
Walton later learned that 184
people were killed in the attack
on the Pentagon. An additional
40 were killed on a fourth plane
that crashed in a field in Shanksville,
Pennsylvania, after passengers
on the plane fought back
against the hijackers.
“The things that we saw were
not something that you want to
keep remembering,” says Walton.
“But the one big thing that
I always remember is how law
enforcement came together,
from Virginia to Maryland. There
wasn’t one agency that wasn’t
out there.”
REMEMBERING THOSE TAKEN
20 YEARS LATER
Countless first responders and
civilians were impacted by the
attack in New York, Washington,
D.C. and Pennsylvania and those
who were there will likely never
forget what they saw.
But instead of focusing on the
death and destruction of that
day, Witherspoon likes to remember
the days after and how
the nation came together.
“It was the first time in my life
that I saw so many people come
together for a common cause,”
he says. “You never think something
like that would happen, but
it did. I think we just always need
to remember the loved ones who
lost someone and support them.”
122 The The Blues - February - ‘24 ‘24