By J1 Reporter Riley Newman

Keith Cunningham was in the Air Force, and heh was stationed at Langley AFD Hospital in Virginia on the date of Sept. 11, 2001. He says that when the first plane hit, everyone thought that it was just a private plane that accidentally hit one of the towers. But, when the second plane hit, that was when everyone knew that “this incident would affect the entire nation, not just New York City.”

As soon as the second tower was hit, the Air Force base was put into lockdown. Cunningham was told that he needed to be ready to deploy to New Jersey within four hours, as he was a member of a deployable field hospital team. They were going to help the injured people, and they were told to expect tens of thousands of deaths.

Because they got there by bus, it took all night to arrive at Fort Dix, New Jersey, which is about an hour away from NYC. Luckily, there were only about 3,000 casualties, which was much fewer than the very large number they were expecting. After about a week and helping many people, they returned back to Virginia. 

However, Cunningham’s involvement did not end there. He says, “In the 20 years of war on terrorism that followed 9/11, I, along with members of my field hospital team, deployed three times to the Middle East.” 

He strongly believes that the world changed on Sept. 11: “The world lost its innocence that day. Society had to restructure and become more vigilant due to the acts of a few evil men.” War broke out, and so many people lost their lives attempting to hold the people who caused this accountable.

Cunningham says that young people should care because people need to be aware of what took place on this day. He brought attention to a quote from Edmund Burke, an Irish politician and philosopher from the 1700s, which says, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”

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