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Miami Student > OpEd Page

A terrifying experience

Column: Perspective

By Allison Kolodziej

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Published: Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Updated: Sunday, February 14, 2010

It's a headline in almost all daily newspapers - War on Terrorism Continues, Terror Alert Level Rises, New Warnings Issued for Potential Targets. And now it's a huge issue driving the election - and one that has many Americans caught as undecided voters. It's really scary and sad that terrorism is so inscribed - almost inherently - in our minds and media after the attacks three years ago. But on the other hand, it's one of those things you think will never happen to you. Maybe it's my naivety from living in a small town all my life where the biggest threat comes from the rival high school football team. But even spending the summer in D.C. with Miami's Washington program didn't stimulate a major worry - at least not at first. I felt a little different after my experience on June 9. It was about 4:35 p.m. on a Wednesday - the day of President Reagan's funeral procession. A group of us were running late to a meeting scheduled in one of the House of Representatives office buildings. The city was already preoccupied with preparations for the funeral so when the Capitol police officers seemed a little distracted as we went through security, it didn't seem like a huge deal. I had just made it through the metal detector when the sirens began blaring. Suddenly guards were pounding on doors - and screaming at people to get out of the building. When a Capitol police officer looks you in the eyes and tells you to run and not stop, he's not messing around. The next few moments were a bit of a blur. But what's clear is the image I saw leaving the office buildings. Herds of congressional staffers and representatives themselves literally running away from Capitol Hill. It was very, very bizarre. For a few minutes, I felt like I was watching the whole situation unfold on television. The whole scene was eerily similar to the one I remember seeing on television on Sept. 11 (yes, on a much lesser scale, but similar nonetheless). Police just kept ordering everyone to get as far away as possible. Rumors began circulating - something about a plane? To make things worse, our cell phones were virtually useless. We had no idea what was going on. All I could think about was a possible terrorist attack. I kept waiting to be hit by a biological weapon or see a plane make its away into the Capitol dome. We were about a half-mile from the office buildings when the police began steering us back to the buildings from their loudspeakers. "Congressional staff members, please return to your buildings." Are you kidding me? Two minutes ago, we were under the perception the city was under attack. Now everything is just fine? It would later be reported that an unidentified aircraft - actually carrying Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher to Reagan's funeral - entered restricted air space and caused all the drama. The plane's transponder - the device that signals its identifying information to the ground - was broken. Officials were concerned it may have been turned off by terrorists, or used by a pilot as a distress signal. I look at this experience in two ways. The whole evacuation gives a sense of trust in the security of the United States. We were out of the building in about 2.5 seconds. It shows that immediate action is taken on any possibility of a threat to our country. However, for about 10 minutes we were left completely in the dark about what was happening. Talk about instilling some very intense, unnecessary fear... And now this same fear is being used to drive the election. "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," said Vice-President Dick Cheney, on Sept. 7. Now some Americans are afraid that if John Kerry is elected, the terrorists will strike again. This is so silly - the danger of a terrorist attack shouldn't be a game or vehicle for votes. With an issue so prevalent in daily life today, it's something that needs to be taken seriously. And this includes by the Kentucky governor. Hopefully the pandemonium he caused will serve as a lesson to get some new, working equipment on his plane.

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