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www.peninsulawarrior.com
• The Peninsula Warrior - Air Force
•
SEPTEMBER 13, 2013
FeatureStory “Horrific. Seeing your fellow Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Marines lying dead in an area where you would think it was impossible was hard to deal with.” – Clifford Bauman, U.S. Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer 4
Twelve years after 9/11
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By Staff Sgt. Jarad A. Denton
To read Part 1 of “Memory’s Requiem,” use a barcode reader application on a cell phone to scan the code on the left. It will open a browser and navigate to the associated link.
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The text on the page began to blend together as his eyes scanned the Washington Post, aimlessly jumping through the headlines. Almost by accident, he found himself staring at three words he couldn’t ignore: “One Year Later.” “Just look away,” he thought. “Turn the page. You don’t need to read about this.” Even as U.S. Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer 2 Clifford Bauman tried to pull his gaze from the story, his mind took him back in time to a place and time he never wanted to see again. Sept. 11, 2001 – The Pentagon, Washington, D.C. “There was stuff floating everywhere,” Bauman said, as he described his journey through knee-deep water into the Pentagon’s E-corridor. “We made our way back around between C and B-corridor and saw where the nose of the aircraft detached and shot through the building.” Immediately, the team stepped outside, set up equipment designed to locate active cell phones and went to work searching for signals. “Once we started pinging I reentered the building, crawling,” he said. “We were there all day and into the night, looking for people – eighteen hours and no survivors – not one.” Looking back at what he did – what he forced himself to do – Bauman said there was only one word to describe everything he experienced. “Horrific,” he said. “Seeing your fellow Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Marines ly-
reflecting on search and rescue missions at the Pentagon after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks
Photo illustration by Staff Sgt. Jarad A. Denton
U.S. Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer 4 Clifford Bauman, while at Langley Air Force Base, Aug. 22, reflects on the boots, gloves and hat he wore during search and rescue missions at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. After the missions were over, Bauman placed the work gear in closet and did not touch them again until 12 years later.
ing dead in an area where you would think it was impossible was hard to deal with.” Even though Bauman had steeled himself to seeing the remains of fallen Service members and comrades, he continued to work through the night, and the painful reality began to fester inside him like a cancerous wound. “When I went home, I really didn’t talk
about it,” he said. “I took my uniform off and threw it in the wash. I took my boots, gloves and hat off and stuck them in a box - they’re still in that box to this day.” For Bauman, the shutdown was automatic. He would discuss general details, but never mention the bodies. He would never talk about the sights, sounds and smells from the flooded hallways and burned-out corridors that stayed buried deep inside his soul like a cancer, slowing eating away at him. “I didn’t talk about it,” he said, quietly. A year after he put those memories away, Bauman felt them bubble to the surface as he read the stories and personal accounts printed in the Washington Post. One particular article caught his eye: a letter, written by a son whose mother had died at the Pentagon. “I had found her body when I was searching through the wreckage,” he said, swallowing a lump in his throat. From that moment, Bauman’s life entered a downward spiral into darkness. “I felt guilty,” he said. “I wasn’t able to find anyone alive. When I would go to sleep at night I would have vivid dreams about what I saw – what I crawled through.” Nights were the worst, as Bauman was relentlessly tormented by his own memory. During the day, tired and exhausted from restless and intermittent sleep, Bauman tried to find solace at the bottom of a bottle. “As you start going down that road, things change inside you,” he said. “People started noticing there was something
different about me, even though I didn’t see it within myself.” The more differently people began to treat Bauman, the more stressed he became. That stress permeated every aspect of his life – including relationships with his family. “My family knew something was wrong,” he said, “but I couldn’t explain to them what was wrong. I couldn’t express it.” This vicious cycle was propagated when those close to him tried desperately to reach out to Bauman, which only caused him to withdraw further from his family, friends and coworkers. As time dragged on, Bauman withdrew more and more. He internalized his feelings and memories, lying to counselors and hiding the post-traumatic stress disorder he would later be diagnosed with. Weeks turned to months as Bauman said the stress and guilt he felt became “poison” in his veins. “I didn’t have an outlet for the stress I was feeling because I wasn’t talking to my psychologist about how I truly felt,” he said. “I just wanted to get the counseling over with because I was fearful for my military career.” With his days spent worrying over his future in the Army, and his nights spent in torment, Bauman decided he needed to get away for the Christmas season and returned home to Kansas City, Mo. Unfortunately, home was where he felt the entire weight of the world crash down upon him. SEE SURVIVOR PAGE 22