Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Every year  federal agencies around the nation pay their respects and honor the victims who died in the attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Federal News Network have put together a photo gallery of agencies remembering the tragic events that impacted all Americans. Please join us in commemoration of 9/11.

The post Honoring the 22nd anniversary of 9/11 first appeared on Federal News Network.

When it comes to mental health, federal agencies must take steps to educate these brave first responders about mental wellness, erase the stigma around mental health issues and ensure their staff feels safe enough to utilize the resources available to them.

Taking action

First responders are always at the forefront of each incident or disaster, and they ensure the safety and well-being of the population. It is estimated that 30% of first responders develop behavioral health conditions including, but not limited to, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, as compared with 20% in the general population.

To tackle the mental health crisis among its federal employees, the departments of Interior and Agriculture established a program that provides mental health training and trauma support services for wildland firefighters. Firefighters are frequently working 800 or more hours of overtime per year as the wildfire season has increased by 80 days since the 1970s. More recently, Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a bi-partisan bill to enhance the DHS law enforcement personnel’s mental health resources and suicide prevention programs. As law enforcement agents work at the U.S.-Mexico border non-stop and witness countless traumatic events, this proposed legislation comes on the heels of a reported 15 suicides among Customs and Border Protection employees in 2022, which is twice the number in 2020 and three times as many in 2014.

Three-quarters of 9/11 first responders report at least one physical or mental health condition directly linked to their exposure to the traumatic event. Almost 30% are managing a mental health condition. In the years since 9/11, the federal government has taken steps to support first responders. For instance, in 2010, the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program was established within HHS. The program provides medical monitoring and treatment benefits for firefighters, law enforcement officers and rescue, recovery and cleanup workers and other eligible survivors. This summer, the Senate voted to allocate an additional $676 million to the program. However, of the estimated 410,000 eligible first responders, only about a quarter have enrolled in the WTC Health Program. During Mental Health Awareness Month earlier this year, bi-partisan legislation was introduced by Reps. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.) to provide mental health resources to first responders and healthcare workers who are at an elevated risk of suicide compared to other professions.

While these steps taken by the federal government are commendable, legislation and the establishment of programs alone will never be enough if we don’t also address the underlying barriers that prevent first responders from using these resources.

Recognizing the underlying challenges

The shortage of mental health workers, paired with the lingering stigma associated with mental healthcare, prevent many federal first responders from getting support. Today, nearly half of all Americans live in a mental health workforce shortage area. Meanwhile, the demand for behavioral health specialists is steadily rising. Fortunately, federal agencies have Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) with counselors in place to help navigate life challenges that may affect job performance, health and personal well-being. These licensed professionals are available by phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and in-person counseling can be arranged on a case-by-case basis. EAPs allow federal workers to find support quickly and at no cost — but they remain severely underutilized, often because of the stigma that mental healthcare continues to carry for some first responders.

Though there have been some positive cultural changes in the last decade to normalize mental health care, many still perceive seeking support as a sign of weakness. They may also worry that their hours will be reduced, they will lose certain clearances or certifications, or be deemed unfit to carry a firearm. This perception causes many first responders to refrain from seeking help until they reach an extreme crisis point — or forego care altogether.

Eliminating the stigma

The fact that negative perception still exists indicates there is still more federal agencies can do for first responders to destigmatize mental healthcare and prioritize privacy.

One way to destigmatize is simply through conversations and agency messaging. I regularly give talks to colleagues about the mental health spectrum on which we all exist, and the consistently high turnout indicates to me that people want to have open conversations. But federal agencies need to prioritize the discussion by highlighting the variety of mental health resources available and conveying that utilizing these services is normal, healthy and supported.

For example, weekly pop-up screens or email reminders are ways to frequently get information in front of the workforce and encourage EAP participation. Agencies can use these reminders as opportunities to teach their employees about tools and techniques available to help self-assess where they are on the mental health spectrum, identify shifts in their mental wellness, and understand how and when to get help.

Breaking down barriers

For this approach to be effective, first responders need to trust these systems and understand that using EAPs or other workplace-sponsored mental health support is completely anonymous. Federal agencies should emphasize this fact to help put minds at ease. For instance, first responders should know if they can access resources on their personal phones. They may be more likely to explore options from the comfort of their home and from a device where they don’t feel they’re being monitored by their employer.

When disaster strikes, first responders are there for Americans in a time of need; they deserve the same from us today. Federal support and resources are crucial, but destigmatization and privacy are essential parts of the equation to encourage the use of provided resources that create resiliency, improve mental preparedness, and recognize the importance of self-care. First responders carry the weight of their own safety and well-being, as well as those they serve. Federal agencies must break down every barrier that stands in the way of these brave individuals and the care they need to thrive.

Dr. Tifani Gleeson, MD, MPH, FACOEM, is a chief medical officer at Sedgwick Government Solutions. Prior to this role, Dr. Gleeson served in numerous leadership positions in the U.S. Navy, including as associate director of the occupational and environmental medicine residency program, Uniformed Services University.

The post Breaking the silence: Federal agencies play a vital role in first responders’ mental health first appeared on Federal News Network.

Sunday’s ceremony occurred a little more than a year after Biden ended the long and costly war in Afghanistan that the U.S. and allies launched in response to the terror attacks.

Biden noted that even after the United States left Afghanistan that his administration continues to pursue those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Last month, Biden announced the U.S. had killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the al-Qaida leader who helped plot the Sept. 11 attacks, in a clandestine operation.

“We will never forget, we will never give up,” Biden said. “Our commitment to preventing another attack on the United States is without end.”

The president was joined by family members of the fallen, first responders who had been at the Pentagon on the day of the attack, as well as Defense Department leadership for the annual moment of tribute carried out in New York City, the Pentagon and Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

In ending the Afghanistan war, the Democratic president followed through on a campaign pledge to bring home U.S. troops from the country’s longest conflict. But the war concluded chaotically in August 2021, when the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed, a grisly bombing killed 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops at Kabul’s airport, and thousands of desperate Afghans gathered in hopes of escape before the final U.S. cargo planes departed over the Hindu Kush.

Biden marked the one-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan late last month in low-key fashion. He issued a statement in honor of the 13 U.S. troops killed in the bombing at the Kabul airport and spoke by phone with U.S. veterans assisting ongoing efforts to resettle in the United States Afghans who helped the war effort.

Biden on Sunday said an “incredible debt” was owed to the U.S. troops who served in Afghanistan as well as their families. More than 2,200 U.S. service members were killed and more than 20,000 were wounded over the course of the nearly 20-year war, according to the Pentagon.

He also vowed that the nation will “never fail to meet the sacred obligation to you to properly prepare and equip those that we send into harm’s way and care for those and their families when they come home — and to never, ever, ever forget.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday criticized Biden’s handling of the end of the war and noted that the country has spiraled downward under renewed Taliban rule since the U.S. withdrawal.

“Now, one year on from last August’s disaster, the devastating scale of the fallout from President Biden’s decision has come into sharper focus,” McConnell said. “Afghanistan has become a global pariah. Its economy has shrunk by nearly a third. Half of its population is now suffering critical levels of food insecurity.”

The president also remembered the words of comfort Queen Elizabeth II, who died last week, sent to the American people soon after the 2001 attacks: “Grief is the price we pay for love.” Biden said those words remain as poignant as they did 21 years ago but the weight of loss also remains heavy.

“On this day, when the price feels so great, Jill and I are holding all of you close to our hearts.” Biden said.

Biden has recently dialed up warnings about what he calls the “extreme ideology” of former President Donald Trump and his “MAGA Republican” adherents as a threat to American democracy. Without naming Trump, Biden again on Sunday raised a call for Americans to safeguard democracy.

“It’s not enough to stand up for democracy once a year or every now and then,” Biden said. “It’s something we have to do every single day. So this is a day not only to remember, but also is a day for renewal and resolve for each and every American in our devotion to this country, to the principles it embodies, to our democracy.”

First lady Jill Biden spoke to a crowd at the Flight 93 National Memorial Observance in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where she recalled the concern she had about her sister Bonny Jacobs, a United Airlines flight attendant.

She said the attacks showed that “with courage and kindness we can be a light in that darkness.”

“It showed us that we are all connected to one another,” said Biden, who was joined by her sister in Shanksville for Sunday’s commemoration. “So as we stand on this sacred and scarred earth, a record of our collective grief and a monument to the memories that live on each day, this is the legacy we much carry forward: Hope that defies hate.”

Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband attended a commemoration ceremony at the National September 11th Memorial in New York.

The post Biden honors 9/11 victims, vows commitment to thwart terror first appeared on Federal News Network.

One time before that, when I was a child, my grandfather took me and my first cousin to National Airport. I was flying home to Pittsburgh, and the families decided my cousin would fly with me for a visit. In those days fares were regulated, but airlines — it was Mohawk, if I recall correctly — had what they called youth fares. My cousin was clearly a youth. We hadn’t even reached the age of 11. But the ticket agent said she needed to see some form of proof.

So my grandfather, something of a wise guy, pulled a school portrait of my cousin out of his wallet. On the back he proceeded to write, in ballpoint pen, my cousin’s name and date of birth. Grandpop handed the small print over to the agent, with the ID now on the back. That’ll do it, she said with a wink, and issued the youth fare ticket.

In those days, before the 1970 advent of magnetometers, you just walked into a plane and sat down. Soon the stewardess, as flight attendants were then called, brought ’round a tray of individually wrapped Chiclets to help your ears decompress.

So if you ask me what’s the biggest change from 9/11, it’s that we took a big step further away from trusting one another. But the nation had already been heading in that direction.

Millions of hours of airtime (including those of my own Federal Drive) and millions of pages of retrospective have been expended on commemorating 9/11 ahead of tomorrow’s 20th anniversary. It’s the Pearl Harbor Day of a newer generation. To me, what 9/11 triggered seems more like the vagaries of Vietnam than the decisiveness of World War II.

Compare Japan and Germany, West Germany anyhow, of 1965 and Iraq and Afghanistan of 2021. In 1965, Japan had already hosted a summer Olympics. Boys’ Life magazine featured swimmer Don Schollander on the cover. Germany’s economic miracle included selling more than 325,000 Volkswagens in the United States. Literally everyone over a certain age drove a Bug at one point or another.

Iraq and Afghanistan — where are their miracles? Why here we are feverishly trying to gain cooperation from the very people deemed a major factor in 9/11 in the first place!

It’s popular to go on about how profoundly 9/11 changed the government. In some sense that’s true. Yes, there’s the Department of Homeland Security — and the word “homeland” becoming part of the U.S. vernacular. But DHS was more a conglomerating of existing departments than the establishment of anything new. The Transportation Security Administration’s work certainly changed air travel, and to some extent cruise travel. But the whole screening mechanism is an extension of what had already been an ever-tightening regime.

Faith and trust in government spiked after 9/11. Many people left the farms and factories, so to speak, to join public service or the military. But that soon faded to the historical downward curve. Nor, obviously, did the toxic partisanship among the people and the politicians improve. 9/11 temporarily halted it, but it started up again within a few months.

Back to the idea of trust.

The perimeter of security around federal facilities and the people who work in them has been moving steadily outward. Unfortunately, for good reason. The attempted assassination of Harry Truman in 1950 ended the idea of a president walking across the street. The Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 gave us bollards and more robust perimeter and entrance security generally, and expanded the idea of what terrorists are actually capable of.

And what is perimeter security and entrance screening but the manifestation of what you can’t trust?

9/11 was cataclysmic in several ways. But it nailed shut the idea of trust on many fronts. It sparked a widening and deepening of the surveillance culture. It made people doubt the loyalties and motivations of others.

The new One World Trade Center rose like a middle finger to the terrorists. But not, in true American fashion, after a solid five years of litigation. Nevertheless, it symbolizes the ultimate resiliency of the nation. So there’s a skyscraper in New York, and a Taliban government in Afghanistan.

If 9/11 changed anything, it is in the psyches of the individuals directly involved. This is true of disasters generally. But did it change everything? I’d say the jury is out.

The post A Tuesday like no other: Did it really change everything? first appeared on Federal News Network.

What do you remember most from that day? And with the benefit of 20 years of reflection, what have been the most significant impacts to your agency’s mission and operations?

We think the best way to tell this story is through feds’ own voices — both current and former. To do that, we’d like to ask you to record your own voice, telling us, in your own words, what you think your fellow citizens should know or remember about Sept. 11, 2001.

The recordings you leave with us will be used as part of our coverage of the 9/11 anniversary, both on-air and online. There’s no requirement to tell us your full name or any more personally-identifying details than you feel comfortable with sharing, but context is valuable. We’d ask that at a minimum, you share your first name and where you were working on that day.

You can share your reflections with us in three ways:

• Record an audio message on your smartphone via its built-in audio recording app. On iPhones, the app is called Voice Memos; Android devices have similar apps, but the names vary. Please record memories of 1 minute or less. Once it’s recorded, you can email it to us at fnncomment@federalnewsnetwork.com.
• Although we prefer the voice memo option because of higher audio quality, you can also call us (toll-free) and leave a voicemail from any telephone. Dial (844)-305-1500, and record your message after the tone.
• Please submit a written memory of no more than 150 words to fnncomment@federalnewsnetwork.com or send us a message on Facebook.

The post Help us commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks first appeared on Federal News Network.

Sept. 11, for many Americans, is the date, like Dec. 7, 1941 — Pearl Harbor — was for an earlier generation. It arguably changed things forever, more than almost any other event. Other burned-into-your-mind dates may include when President John F. Kennedy or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were shot and killed. Life-defining, life-changing moments. With 9/11 being the most recent game-changer. But recent is a relative term. Even for those of us who lived it, it’s still a long time ago. And fading fast for some people. That would be a shame.

Many of us can remember exactly where we were, what we were doing, what we thought was happening. Up close and personal, whether you were in Pittsburgh or Seattle. One of my sons was catching a ride outside the Pentagon when the aircraft slammed into the other side. His brother, my other son, was at a conference at Dulles Airport, which is where the aircraft that hit the Pentagon took off from before it was hijacked. I watched the Pentagon burn from our 5th-floor office, which gave us a look-down view of the Pentagon. We got reports that the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Capitol Building were hit. We heard that unidentified aircraft were heading toward the White House.

Many people worked frantically that day. Most in the D.C. area were told to go home and wait. Churches and synagogues were filled by people saying prayers or seeking answers. Professionals — especially in the government and the military — went into pro-mode. I later spoke to an FAA manager in Atlanta. She dropped her kids off to school then pulled into work just as the first aircraft struck. As she was being briefed, she was told the Trade Towers in New York City had been hit. Then the Pentagon, as well as many false alerts. She was told Air Force One had left Florida for an unknown destination. And that it was being tracked by 3 unknowns.

After a long, terrifying day at the Pentagon, a friend went home, got his fishing equipment and went down to the Potomac. To think! May sound crazy now, but it was that kind of event.

So what about you?

Lots of you were there on the job, or watching, or both. This is the kind of memory your kids, family, neighbors and fellow citizens should hear. Or at least be able to read. Which is what we’d like to do. Either in written form, or your actual voice on the radio. A reminder for friends and family about where you were, what you felt and how life changing it was for us.

We want to hear from you

Federal News Network wants to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks on New York, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. with the help of our audience.

What do you remember most from that day? And with the benefit of 20 years of reflection, what have been the most significant impacts to your agency’s mission and operations?

We think the best way to tell this story is through feds’ own voices — both current and former. To do that, we’d like to ask you to record your own voice, telling us, in your own words, what you think your fellow citizens should know or remember about Sept. 11, 2001.

The recordings you leave with us will be used as part of our coverage of the 9/11 anniversary, both on-air and online. There’s no requirement to tell us your full name or any more personally-identifying details than you feel comfortable with sharing, but context is valuable. We’d ask that at a minimum, you share your first name and where you were working on that day.

You can share your reflections with us in three ways:

• Record an audio message on your smartphone via its built-in audio recording app. On iPhones, the app is called Voice Memos; Android devices have similar apps, but the names vary. Please record memories of 1 minute or less. Once it’s recorded, you can email it to us at fnncomment@federalnewsnetwork.com.
• Although we prefer the voice memo option because of higher audio quality, you can also call us (toll-free) and leave a voicemail from any telephone. Dial (844)-305-1500, and record your message after the tone.
• Please submit a written memory of no more than 150 words to fnncomment@federalnewsnetwork.com or send us a message on Facebook.

The post 9/11 memories: Where were you? first appeared on Federal News Network.

In New York, victims’ relatives gathered Friday morning for split-screen remembrances at the World Trade Center’s Sept. 11 memorial plaza and on a nearby corner, set up by separate organizations that differed on balancing tradition with virus safety.

Standing on the plaza, with its serene waterfall pools and groves of trees, Jin Hee Cho said she couldn’t erase the memory of the death of her younger sister, Kyung, in the 2001 terrorist attack that destroyed the trade center’s twin towers.

“It’s just hard to delete that in my mind. I understand there’s all this, and I understand now that we have even COVID,” said Cho, 55. “But I only feel the loss, the devastating loss of my flesh-and-blood sister.”

Around the country, some communities canceled 9/11 ceremonies, while others went ahead, sometimes with modifications. The Pentagon’s observance was so restricted that not even victims’ families could attend, though small groups could visit its memorial later in the day.

On an anniversary that fell less than two months before the presidential election, President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden both headed for the Flight 93 National Memorial in the election battleground state of Pennsylvania — at different times of day.

Biden also attended the ceremony at ground zero in New York, exchanging a pandemic-conscious elbow bump with Vice President Mike Pence before the observance began.

In short, the 19th anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil was a complicated occasion in a maelstrom of a year, as the U.S. grapples with a pandemic, searches its soul over racial injustice and prepares to choose a leader to chart a path forward.

Still, families say it’s important for the nation to pause and remember the hijacked-plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the trade center, at the Pentagon outside Washington and in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 11, 2001 — shaping American policy, perceptions of safety, and daily life in places from airports to office buildings.

“People could say, ‘Oh, 19 years.’ But I’ll always be doing something this day. It’s history,” said Annemarie D’Emic, who lost her brother Charles Heeran, a stock trader. She went to the alternative ceremony in New York, which kept up the longstanding tradition of in-person readers.

Speaking at the Pennsylvania memorial, Trump recalled how the plane’s crew and passengers tried to storm the cockpit as the hijackers as headed for Washington.

“The heroes of Flight 93 are an everlasting reminder that no matter the danger, no matter the threat, no matter the odds, America will always rise up, stand tall, and fight back,” the Republican president said.

Biden visited the memorial later Friday, laid a wreath and greeted relatives of victims including First Officer LeRoy Homer. Biden expressed his respect for those aboard Flight 93, saying sacrifices like theirs “mark the character of a country.”

“This is a country that never, never, never, never, never, never gives up,” he said.

At the Sept. 11 memorial in New York hours earlier, Biden offered condolences to victims’ relatives including Amanda Barreto, 27, and 90-year-old Maria Fisher, empathizing with their loss of loved ones. Biden’s first wife and their daughter died in a car crash, and his son Beau died of brain cancer.

Biden didn’t speak at that ceremony, which customarily doesn’t let politicians make remarks.

Pence went on to the separate ceremony, organized by the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, where he read the Bible’s 23rd Psalm. His wife, Karen, read a passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

“For the families of the lost and friends they left behind, I pray these ancient words will comfort your heart and others,” said the vice president, drawing applause from the audience of hundreds.

Formed in honor of a firefighter killed on 9/11, the foundation felt in-person readers were crucial to the ceremony’s emotional impact and could recite names while keeping a safe distance. By contrast, recorded names emanated from speakers placed around the memorial plaza. Leaders said they wanted to keep readers and listeners from clustering at a stage.

As in past years on the plaza, many readers at the alternative ceremony added poignant tributes to their loved ones’ character and heroism, urged the nation not to forget the attacks and recounted missed family milestones: “How I wish you could walk me down the aisle in just three weeks,” Kaitlyn Strada said of her father, Thomas, a bond broker.

One reader thanked essential workers for helping New York City endure the pandemic, which has killed at least 24,000 people in the city and over 190,000 nationwide. Another reader, Catherine Hernandez, said she became a police officer to honor her family’s loss.

Other victims’ relatives, however, weren’t bothered by the switch to a recording at the ground zero ceremony, which also drew hundreds.

“I think it should evolve. It can’t just stay the same forever,” said Frank Dominguez, who lost his brother, Police Officer Jerome Dominguez.

The Sept. 11 memorial and the Tunnel to Towers foundation also tussled over the Tribute in Light, a pair of powerful beams that shine into the night sky near the trade center, evoking the twin towers. The 9/11 memorial initially canceled the display, citing virus safety concerns for the installation crew.

After the foundation vowed to put up the lights instead, the memorial changed course with help from its chair, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The lights again went on at dusk Friday.

Tunnel to Towers, meanwhile, arranged to display single beams for the first time at the Shanksville memorial and the Pentagon.

The anniversary has become a day for volunteering, with the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance organization encouraging people this year to make donations or take other actions from home because of the pandemic.

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press journalists Alexandra Jaffe and Ted Shaffrey in New York, Darlene Superville in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The post US remembers 9/11, with virus altering familiar tributes first appeared on Federal News Network.

President Donald Trump, members of Congress and the armed forces honored the victims of Sept. 11, 2001 at services across Washington, D.C., from the site of the attack at the Pentagon, to the White House and Capitol Hill, on Wednesday.

The post PHOTOS: Services at Pentagon, White House, Capitol honor 9/11 victims first appeared on Federal News Network.

Coverage of the hurricanes, their likely destinations, destruction and wind speed has been 24/7. We’ve all seen government workers, military personnel and tens of thousands of private citizens doing their duty. And then some. A friend from Europe said he’s in awe of what we (that is, they — the rescuers and providers) have done. And are still doing, even as the politicians wheel and deal with a shutdown later on (unlikely, but still an option).

Seriously?

Holding part of the government under what amounts to house arrest while denying people promised coverage is a dumb, costly act in the best of times. And these are definitely not the best of times. Especially for those who remember the horror and chaos of the attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, which changed America big time, forever. And hurricanes Harvey and Irma, despite their cute names, have changed Florida and Texas. The rebuilding effort will take billions of dollars and maybe decades. And it can’t happen when politicians (who continue to work and draw their pay) put a CLOSED sign on those functions of government that they think we can do without. Finding a federal operation that hasn’t or won’t have some involvement in rebuilding Houston and south Florida — and other areas that got slammed — isn’t easy.

We’ve seen Homeland Security, ICE, CBP and Coast Guard rescuers on TV. FEMA has been all over the place. People from the Small Business Administration to Agriculture have been all over the place. The Postal Service continued to operate — or save and hold mail — all over the place. We’ve read about the Cajun Navy volunteers who rushed to find, free and feed people stuck on the top floors of their ruined homes. But there are so many others in the government that play a role that most of us don’t ever see, much less know about.

Although I have trouble finding my shoes and keys most mornings, Sept. 11, 2001 is burnt in my brain. Yours too, assuming your brain is in its mid-20s. Or older.

Sixteen years ago today, several of us from the newly formed FederalNewsRadio operation were in a training class on the top floor of our building here in Northwest D.C. One of the tenants from another company in the building came in and asked us what was going on. She figured that as good news hounds, we were on top of it. Apparently, an airplane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings. Gulp. Horrible accident, no doubt. Was it a single-engine or a jumbo jet? Neither, as we quickly learned. Then the second aircraft hit and we watched it on TV.

There was another crash, this one at the Pentagon. A friend from the Drug Enforcement Agency called me to say he had seen it come in. Another friend was in her car going to work when the plane flew — way too low — into the building. She saw it almost from ground zero.

The reports came in fast and furious. The CIA had been hit, we heard. The State Department had been hit. There were 4,200 aircraft in the sky that morning. Many of them headed for New York or D.C. One of them, we heard, was heading for the Capitol building. A friend at the Office of Personnel Management called to say they had been evacuated because of their proximity to the White House. Other feds in other agencies gathered in parks. There were reports of shots fired at the Pentagon supposedly from a sniper who was targeting workers as they fled the building and first-responders as they went in.

While sorting the facts from bogus reports, we could see the smoke, black smoke like oil (or aviation fuel) coming from the Pentagon. Being a radio operation, we are located on the highest ground in the District of Columbia. We look down on the Russian Embassy, the Washington Monument, on Georgetown and, of course, the Pentagon across the Potomac in Virginia. No matter where you were that day, you probably have some vivid memories you can’t shake. Or don’t want to.

Most of us — like most people who had jobs to do — operated on auto-pilot. The grieving, the crying mostly came later.

I like to think what we here at FNR did was helpful. And professional. Responsible. But not heroic.

What so many of you and your colleagues did that day was.

The post Government shutdown? Maybe not the best time first appeared on Federal News Network.

Next week marks the 16th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. But the Justice Department program Congress set up to compensate first responders and others  injured or disabled by exposure to toxic substances at the attack sites is still getting new claims. Rupa Bhattacharyya is the special master of the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund. She told Federal Drive with Tom Temin the program is now in its second iteration after the passage of the James Zadroga Act in 2011.

Subscribe to Federal Drive’s daily audio interviews on iTunes or PodcastOne

The post Rupa Bhattacharyya: Sept. 11 first responders still feeling the pain 16 years on first appeared on Federal News Network.

In recent weeks, we’ve written about a couple of Air Force initiatives intended to scale back on ancillary tasks that have questionable connections to the core business of warfighting, and now it appears the Army is doing much the same — looking for ways to stretch declining budgets by ceasing at least some activities that have been layered onto units over the years.

Eric Fanning, the secretary of the Army (who, perhaps not uncoincidentally was previously the undersecretary of the Air Force), said last week that he’s ordered a new initiative designed to reduce time-consuming requirements directed by Department of the Army headquarters, particularly with regard to training.

“We essentially made a decision that if it’s Army-directed — which, unfortunately, a lot of it is — then we’re going to leave it up to the commanders to figure out how to get their soldiers trained, rather than have them walk through the mandatory PowerPoints we create at headquarters and send out to you in the field,” Fanning said last week at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington. “We need to do that, because we have a number of new warfighting requirements. The continuing resolution that was just signed extends a budget we submitted two years ago, before everything was happening with Russia, before ISIL emerged, before the Chinese became more provocative. So there are a lot of new stressors on the force, and we need to push more authorities and flexibility down to the garrison commanders.”

Gen. Mark Milley, the Army chief of staff, said the problem of excessive tasking isn’t just a Pentagon problem, but rather a cumulative one generated by each echelon of the Army’s leadership structure, down to the level of an Army company.

“At the end of the day, the last document I saw was 12 pages of single-spaced, nine-point type listing all of the activities a company commander and a first sergeant have to do, mandated by us. It’s nuts. It’s insane,” he said. “What’s happened over the years is that everyone who has a computer thinks they’re Leo Tolstoy and they want to put 50,000 requirements out there. Their staffs are large, but the company commander has no staff. It’s not humanly doable, and it has a lot of second-and-third order implications.”

Although he did not offer examples, Milley said Army leaders would try to thin out those demands by exercising what he called a “line-item veto” over existing requirements imposed by Army officials at the Pentagon, Army Forces Command or other higher headquarters.

“We are going to delete, in a very deliberate way, any task that is not directly associated with combat readiness and preparation for war. We have to cease fire on all this stuff,” he said.

Sergeant Major of the Army Daniel Dailey, the service’s top enlisted soldier, said there’s an additional reason the Army needs to free up service members’ time from compulsory computer-based training and administrative compliance: as the Army reduces its reliance on contractors, it’s going to expect soldiers to take over many of the home-station tasks it outsourced while troops were busy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“That’s part of the way we’re going to reduce our spend and make sure we’re still supplying essential services, and you’re already seeing some of that as soldiers have taken over duties like gate guard,” he said. “That may seem like that’s a detractor to training, but I can tell you that being a gate guard is a way to apply discipline and training to our soldiers. We have to look at opportunities like that where we can balance commanders’ needs on their installations with the needs of individual soldiers for training and readiness.”

Return to the DoD Reporter’s Notebook

The post Army looks to pare soldiers’ administrative tasks: They’re ‘not humanly doable’ first appeared on Federal News Network.

The post Remembering the Pentagon on Sept. 11 first appeared on Federal News Network.

I was on the IRS customer service toll free line assisting taxpayers when the second tower was hit.

By the time the Pentagon was hit, I had to tell a taxpayer that I had to discontinue the call, because we were being evacuated.

Remember 9/11!

—John Fox, IRS

The post An IRS customer service rep recalls 9/11 first appeared on Federal News Network.

The towers weren’t very popular for a good while, as they were very different from the Empire State and other, older skyscrapers.  After a while, though, people came to accept the towers, in all their brutal simplicity, as an integral part of NYC and part of any New Yorker’s cultural identity.

On 9/11/2001 I was serving overseas at a U.S. embassy.  I was in a counseling session with one of my staff when one of my local employees knocked on the door and said that I had to see the TV news, there had been a terrible plane crash in New York.  I said I would check it out as soon as I finished the meeting (I thought it might be something like the  accidental crash of a military plane into the Empire State Building back in 1945).

At the end of the meeting, I went to our little cafeteria to get a jolt of coffee and to see what was going on in New York — I had no clue.  I walked up to the cafeteria counter just in time to see, on the TV on the far wall, a smoking tower crumble and crash to the ground.  That was my first hint of what was going on — I did not yet know the disaster unfolding on TV was the result of a deliberate, horrible act.

More than 30 people from my home county in southern New York State died that day — business people, office workers, cops and firefighters.  To back up a bit, I had already served overseas in some dicey situations, but when my spouse and I took on those assignments, we were taking on the risks willingly in order to do our jobs and serve our country.  We had the comfort of knowing that our family and friends back in the U.S. would not have the same kind of security and safety worries.  That all changed on 9/11 — we could no longer be reasonably assured that our home folks would not be facing the same risks.

My wife’s niece had been working in one of the towers until her office was relocated to midtown Manhattan shortly before 9/11.

My father-in-law was a war veteran (who still had machine gun bullets in his body) and a naturalized American.  He was immensely proud of his U.S. citizenship.  He had been retired for some time, and not in the best of health, but to give back to his adoptive country, on 9/11 he was at his usual job in south Manhattan to help elderly folks in need.  When the towers came down he was sent home.  His public transit route was shut down, so he walked home 50 blocks.  When my wife called and expressed her worry about his long trek and his health, he said he was fine, and that there were a lot of other people in New York who would be far more needful of help and support for a long time to come.

I’m old enough to remember our losses of JFK, MLK, and RFK.  Immense events for all of us who were around in those years, but 9/11 was different.  Different for the personal scale of the tragedy, and different because so many had what Churchill might have called their finest hour.

So many of us can’t avoid choking up when we try to talk about the amazing courage and generosity of the American people that day and in the following days. Few of us could be at Ground Zero or the Pentagon, but many of us have since stepped up in whatever small way that we could.  My wife and I later would take on some hard assignments and weathered some hard experiences, trying to do our bit —  and a lot of public servants were trying to do the same in their own way, many of them years after 9/11/2001.

We had some plenty of good models to follow, be they the people who were worked on The Pile, rescued the injured from the Pentagon, volunteered for any kind of public service, or those on one airplane simply said, “Let’s roll” — and did.

—Anonymous

The post Witnessing 9/11 from an overseas embassy first appeared on Federal News Network.

The management team had gathered for a meeting and our room was right next to the Public Affairs Office. The PA had a TV on that constantly streamed the local news, so they saw the first plane hit and came into our room to tell us what happened. We all went into their room and saw as the second plane hit the second tower.

Then all hell broke loose at our location as people scrambled back to offices and phones and tried to find out what happened. Eventually, we were told to orderly depart the building as all government offices were being evacuated for the day. In the middle of this chaos, my employees all came into my office with a beautiful cake that they had purchased for the occasion. They sang to me and then I said ‘Eat your cake and go the hell home!’

I distinctly remember the drive home on that gorgeous September day. The sky was a brilliant blue as only September skies can be. And as I made my way home on I-95 South towards my home in South Jersey, a steady parade of police, fire, emergency vehicles of all kinds from all over the Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia area went screaming past me in the opposite direction toward New York.

It was and will remain the most surreal experience in my life.

—Randi Salkowitz, IRS

The post ‘Sept. 11, 2001 was my 40th birthday’ first appeared on Federal News Network.