Not really sure if this will mean anything to anyone but after spending all day watching the news and seeing stories about 9-11 and reading message boards about it, it got me to thinking about an experiance I had in New York days after the attack. This particular experiance and what it ment to me at the time makes me wish Americans had a longer attention span, and remember what it was like all across this country in the days following that nightmare.
I'm a white country boy from southwest Oklahoma. Small town, no gangs, where everyone knows everyone. The only problems you had to worry about in that town, was the town drunks, or the high school kids getting out of hand and TP'ing your house (I was one of THOSE kids). I lived a fairly sheltered life growing up, and then I joined the military. First the Army, and then the Coast Guard. Getting shot at in Desert Storm sucked so I figured the Coast Guard would be nice.
Well September 12th 2001 found me in New York City with a Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment out of Virginia. We were sent up there to do port security operations. If you've ever been to Staten Island and drove around looking for a gas station that sells diesel fuel, you'll find 1. It's a Shell station smack dab in the middle of the hood. I mean pips on one corner and crack dealers on the other. Definately not the place you would normally find a truckload of white guys driving around in uniform.
We (myself and 3 other guys on my team) had been told to go top off one of our trucks with fuel. This was a Ford F-550 4X4 Crew Cab/Utility Body truck. This thing screams redneck. Anyways we are driving around looking for a diesel pump and can't find one. We ended up flagging a police officer down and asked if he could tell us where to find diesel fuel. He looked at us real funny but gave us directions to this Shell station.
As we pull in we're looking at our suroundings and watching everyone looking at us. To say we were getting a little tense is putting it mildly. As we're filling up the truck, the largest black man I have ever seen in my life walked out of the station and stood there looking at us. He had a gold tooth you could see across the parking lot, and his arms were bigger than my legs. This dude was 300+ and he wasn't fat. Anyways he's staring at us, his boys hanging out in front of the station are staring at us, and we are all sure we're about to get killed if we don't vacate the area real quick.
Just as we're finishing up at the pump he started walking over to the truck. The guy next to me in the truck loads his 9mm, and tells me to do the same. Before I could even get mine out of the holster, this guy is sticking is hand in the window and asking, "You dudes in the Coast Guard?" We told him yes we were. Then he says, "Well my names Big Mick, I just wanted to thank you guys for what your doing up here. I got fresh donughts in the shop if ya'll are hungry. It's on the house." I couldn't believe it. I thought we were going to get killed and this guy is offering up fresh donughts??
Well we didn't want to be rude so we all went into the station and had a donught and a cup of coffee with Big Mick and his boys. He asked us if our guns were loaded and when we told him yes he laughed and said, "Last week, you boys showed up here like you did, you might have needed em, but now that things have changed, ya'll can come here anytime you want." All his boys were laughing with him and they all started pulling pieces out and showing us what they carried. It was crazy!!!
When we were leaving he walked back out to the truck with us and told us that if anyone gave us a hard time while we were there to tell them we were his boys and we'd be left alone.
I guess the whole point of that story is to ask the question.....what has happened to our country?? Why can't it always be that way??
I did learn a lesson that night though. I learned that no matter where your at or what your doing, a little respect can go a long way.
Big to Big Mick and his boys. They made us feel at home when we were away from home on the job.
