WHITE HOUSE COLLECTION
you, are you being watched by somebody who’s trying to find a way to get to the family through you?” Some who had once proudly said they worked at the White House no longer divulged it for fear of becoming a target. Theresa Luchsinger said, “I don’t tell anybody where I work, what I do. That’s not because I think it’s super confidential; it’s just because you don’t really think about who that person might know or, ‘oh, hey, my neighbor works at the White House,’ or whatever. You just really don’t know, and I guess I probably consider not myself, but in general how the staff here could become a target. So, I have changed in that respect. I really don’t talk about what I do or where I work.” On the other hand, Cris Comerford felt proud. “Even though it was a scary feeling that the day before you were so vulnerable and you didn’t know what was happening, but being called in, I felt like one of the military guys. Even though, granted, we’re just cooking food, but I felt really proud working and coming back, like, ‘Fine. You might have hit the tower, but you didn’t hit my spirit.’”
Dennis Hawk of the Operations Department remembered Residence staff carrying pens inscribed “September 11, 2001” and wearing laminated images of the American flag with their work badges. Many wore American flag lapel pins. There was a sense of camaraderie among the staff who had gone through this traumatic event together. Claire Faulkner reflected, “And people tell their stories and what happened to them on that day and their thoughts, and so it still weighs on everyone’s mind quite a bit. And knowing that we were sort of all in the same situation and all had a difficult time. Some people were not as open emotionally to each other as they are now. Now they feel that they really maybe have a stronger bond to each other.” Florist Bob Scanlan seemed to agree. “I enjoy my job,” he said. “I enjoy the people here, and I think because of the friendships that everyone has created and just, in general, the concern we have for one another is—I hate to use the term ‘family,’ but we really sort of are.”
Chef Roland Mesnier agreed with Gary Walters’s decision to call the Residence staff back to work on September 12, 2001, but also recalled, “There was a certain feeling of cold, death, not sure of what the next day’s going to be, for the longest time.”
white house history quarterly
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