Some had served the country for a decade. Others for two decades, three decades or longer. When duty called, these members of the Maryland National Guard were there.
Rushed into action on September 11, 2001, they arrived by school bus and were on duty as military police at the Pentagon within 24 hours of a plane crashing into that building. The wreckage still smoldered as rescue operations continued.
And for many years after, they dashed from assignment to deployment, one stop after the next, without giving much thought to how much they themselves were impacted by being so close to these traumatic events.
“It was tap after tap after tap for this group of folks,” said Liz Durand, who joined the U.S. Army as a Russian linguist before becoming a military police officer. “We were there while the Pentagon was still burning, literally, helping with recovery operations and protecting closed off areas. We went home and within two weeks, we were tapped to go to Fort Stewart, Georgia, for a couple months to work the front gate. Then some of us went to Cuba to start Guantanamo Bay while the female MPs like me went back to the Pentagon for another year. Then we went home for a couple weeks and then we got tapped to go to Iraq.”
Even the year at the Pentagon, while close to home, was difficult, Durand said. It was easy to focus on the mission when abroad. But when you’re stationed just a few hours from home, you worry about your civilian life, too.
Twenty years after their initial assignment to the Pentagon, in 2021, the group gathered for a reunion at Patriot Point, the Military Bowl Foundation’s 294-acre retreat center for wounded, ill and injured service members, their families and caregivers. And what the group found – individually and collectively – surprised them.
“I thought it was going to be no big deal, but it was amazing,” Durand said. “That was the first time I had the chance to think about what we had done. And not only could we process our own things, but we were able to process with each other. One of the things about veterans is you don’t have to know each other, but you have a common bond. And for our group, it was like we had never been apart.
“We had gained weight, lost weight and had different jobs, but we laughed together and we cried together. We just sat on that back deck in the chairs, watching the water and thinking about things. It was so cathartic to just let it go – all the stuff we had been hanging onto, especially in a place where I knew my comrades had my back.”
Each year since, the group has gathered at Patriot Point to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11 and the call to serve their nation. The first year was just the veterans. Spouses were invited to join the following year.
“We found that our spouses started to understand why we all were weird,” said Amy Matthews, who joined the U.S. Army in 1984 following high school and served a total of 35 years on active-duty and in the reserves. “It has made a lot of spouses understand a little more about what goes on in our heads sometimes. It’s so peaceful down there. But [Patriot Point] is detached and it’s beautiful and nobody bothers you once you go through the gates.
“We were glad when there was no cell reception. We were down there being brothers and sisters and comrades in arms. We’re not on Facebook. We don’t turn on the TV. We’re walking and cooking and letting out a lot of bottled up stuff and it gets better every year. It’s been a great healing process for a lot of us that just started going because we felt we were going crazy.”
Matthews now works as an emergency room nurse on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. She also volunteers at Patriot Point as the beekeeper.
“After we started going to Patriot Point, we all decided as a group that we would start going to mental health counseling,” Matthews said. “I wasn’t sleeping and hadn’t slept since 2006. I was hyper stimulated. I’m a nurse, it’s shift work. I came home [from serving on active duty] and got divorced. They said I needed to relax and suggested equine therapy.”
Matthews said she didn’t have access to a horse, so it was suggested that she try bee therapy. She learned about the VFW’s Heroes to Hives program and took an online course. Matthews now has 14 hives on her property (with between 50,000 to 80,000 bees) and produced 600 pounds of honey last year.
“The VA thought beekeeping would help my relaxation and anger and anxiety and I think the VA might be onto something,” she said. “Patriot Point got bees for a totally different reason, for farm to table, but it works. Bees are similar to equine therapy: if you’re agitated then they’re agitated. If you go out to the bees with a lot of emotion, they’ll sting you or run you right out of the hives. If you go in there relaxed, then you can do whatever. It has taught me to relax.”
Matthews is excited for this year’s reunion, which also will include a trip back to the Pentagon. She’s looking forward to sitting around the bonfire and trading stories, as well as getting out to the five-stand shooting range and shooting clays.
“We’ve been coming to Patriot Point to reconnect, heal and do some of the activities that are provided for us,” said Francis Selph, who served 15 years first in the Army and then in the National Guard. “It’s a time to reconnect with our fellow veterans. We’ve all known each other for more than 20 years.”