I will have to ask forgiveness for my abject lack of sympathy for the sentiments expressed last Wednesday in Wynne Duong’s column, “On My Mind.” Beside those of Duong’s concerns with no grounding in truth, those with factual basis were largely petty and insipid.
I would like to offer my experience in London Heathrow Airport on Aug. 11, 2006, the day after the British government launched a series of arrests to foil the liquid explosives plot. On that morning, I boarded American Airlines Flight 99, which took off at 7:55 a.m., bound for Chicago O’Hare. That morning, fears of losing my beloved tube of Colgate Total or of canceling my duty-free shopping plans took a back seat to making sure I returned to the United States without terrorists exploding my plane.
I first learned of the attempted Aug. 10 attack through a worried call from my girlfriend back in the United States, a call quickly followed by a call from my parents and another from Vanderbilt Studies in London director Dr. Paul Elledge. I rushed to turn on Sky News, from which I learned the full details of the plot. Airlines were canceling flights from all four of London’s airports, especially Heathrow, which serves the three airlines targeted by the plot, United, Continental, and American, the airline I would be flying. Fortunately, with the aid of Dr. Elledge, for whose assistance I am eternally grateful, I arrived at Heathrow with time to check my bags, go through three searches, and board the plane. The British Airports Authority personnel even allowed me to bring my over-the-counter Dramamine on the flight. Even more fortunate, however, is that almost every single Vanderbilt student had safely arrived in the United States a few days prior to the incident.
American Airlines Flight 99 on the morning of Aug. 11 was largely uneventful. Before takeoff, a flight attendant remarked with stoic humor that she couldn’t even remind us to turn off our cell phones and electronic devices. I found nobody decrying carrying the clear plastic bags or packing toiletries and electronics in checked baggage, nor could I find anybody complaining about the serpentine queues that engulfed the American Airlines check-in desk that morning. The other passengers and I also received beverage service three times during the flight, so any concerns of dehydration, which lay at the far back of my mind anyway, disappeared with some haste. I somehow found the peace of mind to fall asleep on the plane — fortuitously having an empty aisle seat next to my window seat helped — and woke up from the long 48 hours of nightmare somewhere over Lake Michigan, secure in the knowledge that I would land safely in O’Hare before making one last, short journey to Nashville.
More than two weeks have passed since Scotland Yard made the arrests that captured the conspirators in this murderous plot; more than two weeks have passed since my safe arrival in Nashville. However, I still find myself reeling from a number of ideas: that I might owe my life to some surveillance program that I would find politically distasteful; that certain persons have become so sickened by hate that they would go to unthinkable lengths to kill innocents; and that, again through the machinations of hate-sickened minds, I might forever lose those dear to me.
Having to put my MP3 player in my checked luggage, on the other hand, failed to capture my thoughts so powerfully.
Kevin McNish is a junior in the College of Arts and Science.
