Alpharetta Couple Didn't Underestimate Son's Courage

EDITOR'S NOTE: As part of Patch's coverage and commemoration, we are putting together images and human interest stories about how that tragic date has affected us all.

What follows are the thoughts and memories of John Klein, now an Alpharetta resident, and how it affected a little boy who's since grown up, 10 years later.

"I cannot articulate the profound awe I have for the courage of the first responders of 9/11 and those who subsequently served our country. I felt guilty for being safe and sound that day.

We were still New Yorkers back in 2001. We lived at the end of the line of Metro North, the commuter railroad whose Hudson Line runs 75 miles south down the river into Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal. My son Brendan was a 9-year-old fourth grader.

On 9/11 my wife Rosana put Brendan on the bus to school and then got ready to catch the next train to work. The Today show played in the background. She decided to stay home, because a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

I was away on business in Rochester, NY, a 6-hour drive away. My meeting still hadn’t gotten past small talk yet when someone interrupted us, because a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

I reached Rosana on her cell, pretty quickly, and was relieved she was OK. She said Brendan’s school was on lockdown but let parents take their kids home early if they wanted, which she did.

I remember the sky that September afternoon was cloudless and blue as I drove home. The New York State Thruway seemed deserted. I listened to news reports on the radio about limited cell service, thousands stranded in Manhattan and at airports around the country…and untold numbers killed in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.

I think I stopped at our church first. There weren’t as many people there as I thought there would be. When I got home, we watched the TV coverage of the attack and the rescue efforts. I had just come from church and I still could not help but curse the terrorists. I don’t remember trying to explain to Brendan what had happened.

My father joined the Navy in World War II. Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. He turned 17 the next day so my grandfather, himself a Navy veteran, took him to the recruiting station to enlist on his birthday. I don’t remember my father telling me what those two days were like.

I now remember that, when I was a kid, almost everyone’s dad was a volunteer fireman and they all responded when the firehouse siren blew. I knew a policeman, who went to our church, that once gave a ride to a runaway headed for the train station and brought him back home to his parents instead, safe and sound.

Shortly after he turned 17, Brendan asked our permission to enlist, in the Marine Corps. My grandfather did not underestimate my father’s courage, and we could not underestimate my son’s. As parents, we immerse ourselves in the details of his basic training, occupational school, duty station, and the culture of his branch. But they are just details, after all, compared to the profound understanding we must accept that he will not always enjoy the safety and soundness that we do. For that he earned his first ribbon, for enlisting during a time of war.

Today bravery may seem rarer. I’ll bet stateside was deserted of men after Pearl Harbor, that uncommon valor really was a common virtue, that nobody ever second guessed war like they have since. But bravery is not extinct and never can be in a fallen world. In the process of their service, first responders and warriors willingly lay down much of their individuality in order to commit to a shared purpose. Brendan’s boot camp graduation photos are a sea of 60 other faces. Sometimes I have to ask Rosana to remind me where Brendan is. I can’t always tell them apart. Maybe that’s because they are made of some of the same stuff.

Plenty of kids say they want to be a fireman, policeman, or soldier when they grow up. What makes some of them follow through? What activates the courage they seem born with, disciplined, cultivated, and galvanized? What makes them run toward the danger?"

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Were you in New York at the time? Did you have family or friends who were affected? Do you know of anyone who was deployed to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan?

If your life was in some way changed by the events of 9/11, we're asking for photos or personal accounts to share with our readers. What are your memories of that day that changed your life here in Alpharetta and Milton?

Please send a photo and your story by email to Bob Pepalis.