Being an American, after September 11 attacks

That quote is from a "beautiful, brilliant medical student," who Rik Reppe sat down and talked to on a beach after the tragedies of Sept. 11, 2001 -- about what he thought America was. At the beginning of his show at Cottey College on Friday, Nov. 21, Rik asked the crowd "Where were you?"

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He was watching television. He recalled trying to find his left shoe. He saw the images on the screen as the planes crashed into the Twin Towers.

"I thought I was looking at the cheesiest movie clip ever ... by the time I got to ESPN I realized what had happened."

That is when reality set in. That's when the illusion of America's invincibility was shattered. He told his audience of how disconnected he felt; as did many others in the country that day. After watching the news constantly, he started realizing that everything on the news was coming from "a bunch of smart people who represented maybe .0001 percent of the population" who weren't telling how the other 99.9 percent of American's felt, thought, or wanted. The newscasters didn't sound like anyone he was familiar with. After thinking of the happenings, he decided he wanted to hear what the rest of America thought.

In November and December of 2001, Rik shut down his management consulting practice, packed up a few necessities -- a tent, sleeping bag, and clothes, got in his pickup truck and started on his journey to find out what it meant to be an American.

On his trip, he met many people of different ethnicities and backgrounds. In the beginning of his trip, he was at a small restaurant in California where he was observing a group of elderly Armenian men. They were a lively bunch of old fellows; every so often one would go to the counter and buy a milkshake for the group to pass around as they sat around and carried on. When Rik joined them, they talked of many things. One particular case in point was about the tattoos the men had on their knuckles. One of the Armenian men told of how they had been prisoners in Turkey when they were younger. He told Rik how they had been imprisoned for what they believed, ending by asking Rik, "I know why I'm in this country. Do you?"

It seemed to Rik that an Armenian immigrant knew more about what it was to be an American than someone who had lived here all their life.

Continuing on in his travels, he found his way to Las Vegas, Nev., on Nov. 7, 2001.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, the economy had gotten bad -- so bad in fact that the call girls in Las Vegas were finding it hard to keep their clients. As he was sitting in a casino, Rik starting conversing with a call girl named Lona. Lona told Rik about a potential client she had met. He was a young man, in his early 30s. His first night was with Lona, he started crying, but he never said why. He finally explained to her that he was from the New York area, and his father worked in one of the Twin Towers. The young man couldn't get home because all the bridges to the city were shut off, and there was such a tizzy at the airports that it made it impossible for him to get back home. He had also tried calling several times but couldn't get a hold of anyone. The remaining days he was in Las Vegas, Lona would call him any time she had a break in her schedule and meet up with him. While with him, she sat there and tried to think of anything that would keep his mind off of the attacks of Sept. 11. Most of the time she just sat and let him talk about what was going on in his head; when he started crying, she would hold him in her arms. On the fourth day he was in town, he had received a phone call from a cousin in New Jersey telling him his father was OK. He rented a car to drive home. While saying their farewells the man grabbed her and gave her the deepest kiss she had ever had in her life. That was the last Lona ever heard of him.

Rik continued on, still trying to find the meaning of being an American. His journey took him to Memphis, Tenn.

There, he met a lively group of people at a local bar one night while watching a band play. He started talking to them when he started talking to Momma. He and Momma discussed what he was doing in Memphis while he was in town. She asked him if he was going to see Graceland, he told her of course he was. Then she asked him if he was going to see Lorraine Motel, the place Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, and where the Civil Rights Museum is located. He explained to Momma that he didn't have enough time to visit the museum.

That night, Rik started thinking about his conversation with Momma. Why was he more interested in going to see the house of a dead singer, than somewhere a huge piece of history had taken place? The remorse that he had felt filled the auditorium as he sat in silence for a few seconds. The next day, Rik didn't make it to Graceland. Instead he spent eight hours in the Civil Rights museum.

As he traveled east, the reality of everything that had happened started becoming more of a realistic thought. Rik had begun to interact with people who had actually been affected directly by the tragedy.

He was in the National Mall, in Washington D.C., where he saw at flute player playing with a container that people would drop money in. The flutist, J.D., told Rik about the days following Sept. 11, and how the mall was empty and of how the people in Washington, D.C., were walking around like zombies. J.D. felt like he should do something, but wasn't sure what he could do to help.

So, one day while at playing at the mall as he did every day, tired of seeing people walking around like the living dead, he had the notion to play the "Star Spangled Banner."

He told Rik that when he did so, everyone in the mall as far as the eye could see stopped in their tracks looked to the American flag, put their hands over their hearts and started singing the anthem. As they talked, Rik couldn't believe that everyone in the mall could be stopped by one song. J.D. told him he could still do it; so he took his flute and began to play the "Star Spangled Banner." Rik was astonished when he saw every person in the mall, even three skater punks, stop, put their hand over their hearts, look at the flag and start singing the anthem. J.D. looked at him after it was over and said, "See, they still got it in them."

While in Washington D.C., he went to see the destruction at the Pentagon. The Pentagon: America's military headquarters had been infiltrated. It was lined with a memorials of people killed, a chainlink fence, and soldiers dressed in full combat gear. Everything started becoming real as he stood in a group of people on a hill staring down at the heavily guarded Pentagon.

When he reached New York all the feelings he had gathered from his trip started hitting home. He was at the place where it all had happened. He told of how the noise level of this huge city shrank as he neared ground zero. When he came upon the wreckage of the towers, there were pictures hung up with words saying, "Have you seen this person?" He walked among memorials of people who had died along with memorials of the fire fighters who died in the line of duty. He told of how everything stated to become overwhelming, as he looked at all these faces he realized how easy it was to hear about all these men and women dying until he started putting faces with the names. He told of a boy who had been at ground zero every day since the attacks because his mother had been in the second tower; also of an Arabic man crying, shouting and pointing at the rubble, "This is not Islam! This is not Islam!" Tears started welling up in seemingly every eye in the auditorium, as Rik again became silent for a few seconds allowing his words to sink in.

On Dec. 10, 2001, Rik told of the visit to Shanksville, Penn., to see the crash sight of Flight 93. The words "Let's roll" were all over; these were the last words from that flight before the passengers fought back against the terrorists.

In lieu of the Christmas season, people even had "Let's roll" spelled out in Christmas lights on their houses. Everywhere in Shanksville, people were paying respects to the brave souls lost on Flight 93. By the time Rik made it to the crash sight, it was very dark, freezing rain, and the cold wind was cutting through him. He pulled up and his pickup's headlights illuminated what looked like a construction sight and an American flag waving in the frigid gusts of wind. As he walked closer, there was a sign that told the field was the future site of the Flight 93 memorial.

"I wanted to believe it was just another construction site," Rik said in a somber tone. He walked further into the field, with a flashlight as his only guide, when he fell into a huge crater. It was raining, making it difficult for him to get back out of the crater; he finally was able to struggle is way up the muddy slope back onto the level ground.

After leaving Shanksville, Rik started on his way back home. He stopped along the way at a truck stop where he was greeted by a fast-talking waitress; Rufus; the Walrus, a large truck driver; Carl the manager; and two young African American men truck driving to make money for school. While at the truck he had decided he'd talked to enough people, so he sat in a booth by himself.

Somehow, the people he met sucked him into their wild conversation. He told of singing Christmas karaoke at the truck stop, and of his truck breaking down and of two men helping fix his truck so he could make it home. Stopping at this particular truck stop, Rik found his diamond in the rough.

He concluded by telling about this dysfunctional group of people in their small part of America, in which he found a deep connection between strangers. A connection he had traveled thousands of miles to find. He found his America and what it meant to him; people being brought together under very uncanny situations and the invisible link shared by only strangers. He found the American melting pot and discovered where he came from.