(1966 Album by the Mamas and the Pappas. We have to change the lyrics a bit to adjust to the individual year. AOL, our internet provider, does not want us to be able to insert the image for reasons best known to themselves).

So here we are. Sunday! Damn, that was startling. We were humming the old tune by the Mama’s and the Papa’s, the Tuesday one goes with all the other days since the attacks. It seems like a long time ago because it was. I was up early that morning in an unusual place: The Bachelor Officer’s Quarters at Fort Myers. We had just started a new job up at Langley with some familiar folks and life was good.

At least it was good until around 8:40 that morning. Then everything else started to happen. Remember the tune on the radio? It wasn’t “Sunday,” it was “Monday” in the lyrics. We assume that meant something about how Mondays always seem to tip over onto you. Tomorrow is the anniversary of that Tuesday, which puts this anniversary as a Monday, not a Sunday, but that is the way it is going to be for the memories of the nearly three thousand people who perished that morning.

The Mamas gave it their best on the opening:

“Bah-da bah-da-da-da
Bah-da bah-da-da-da
Bah-da bah-da-da-da”

We were about where you would expect things on a Tuesday morning. If you are unfamiliar with the geography of this portly border down, Fort Myers is on the National Capital side of the big River. We were in uniform early, since the route to Langley was still unfamiliar. In fact, my gyn clothes were still in a locker down in the Pentagon Officer’s Athletic Club, or what we knew as “The POAC.”

Since the route to Langley went past the North side of the five-sided building, we stopped to clear things out. We did not have to worry about where we parked, since the enforcement on parking wouldn’t start until after breakfast. By that time we had walked from North Parking into the parking lot entrance and retrieved some gear that could have used a wash by that time. Then back to the car and back on the road up to the job on the 4th floor of the Original Headquarters Building.

We were just getting into the short meeting we liked to start the days up\ there, with four Salts on the staff appearing in civilian clothing since they were retired and contributing their time as consultants, right up until 8:40 that Tuesday morning.

That was when Air traffic controllers at the FAA alerted NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) about a suspected hijacking of Flight 11. The rest of that morning is still shrouded in some confusion. That jet eventually went into the World Trade Center’s North Tower, and all of us in the Government sphere of operations went to war.

United Flight 93 was next. It was a Boeing 757 with 44 people aboard, and took off routinely from Newark International Airport en route San Francisco, one of our favorite towns in the world. Or at least it would be for a little while longer.

We were getting to the action list of things to accomplish at the Headquarters of the three-letter agency when Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 crashed the plane into floors 93-99 of the WTC North Tower, killing everyone on board and hundreds inside the building. All we knew as word spread down the corridor from the offices that something awful had happened in New York City.

This was not the first war some of us had seen, and in another one an aircraft had once accidentally flown into the Empire State Building. Pure chance, so we decided to take a measured approach to things. Or at least we did until Flight 93 did it’s thing, and the Pentagon and Shanksville, PA, were being lined up for mischief and unspeakable evil.

This day is a Sunday with a Monday as the actual anniversary tomorrow. On the actual day we were just going to war at the hour in which we type and mutter if our offices at Langley would be next.

Sunday, Sunday, so good to me
Sunday mornin’, it was all I hoped it would be
Oh Sunday mornin’, Sunday mornin’ couldn’t guarantee
That Sunday evenin’ you would still be here with me

Sunday, Sunday, can’t trust that day
Sunday, Sunday, sometimes it just turns out this way
Oh Sunday mornin’ you gave me no warnin’ of what was to be
Oh Sunday, Sunday, how could you leave and not take me?

Every other day, every other day
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Sunday comes, but whenever Sunday comes
A-you can find me cryin’ all of the time

Sunday, Sunday, so good to me
Sunday mornin’, it was all I hoped it would be
But Sunday mornin’, Sunday mornin’ couldn’t guarantee
That Sunday evenin’ you would still be here with me

Every other day, every other day
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah (yeah)
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
9/11 reminds you can find us cryin’ all of the time…

{Pause, remembering the three thousand fellow citizens who perished that morning}:

Sunday, Sunday, can’t trust that day
Sunday, Sunday, it just turns out that way
Oh Sunday, Sunday, won’t go away
Sunday, Sunday, it’s here to stay
Oh Sunday, Sunday
Oh Sunday, Sunday…

Monday Monday lyrics Copyright 1966 John Phillips, recorded by the Mamas & the Papas. Instruments by members of the Wrecking Crew. Assorted recollections copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com