Sept. 11, 2001, was a stressful day at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, as confusion, anger, fear and helplessness prevailed. It changed the environment of our facility forever.
As security concerns increased and our air of security on our home ground was fractured, those dreadful, evil attacks on our homeland were incomprehensible. Confidence returned as we looked for those who had breached our sense of freedom. But the reality of the costs of those attacks in terms of lives and dollars even today have not been accurately calculated.
How much did the events of that day contribute to the budget deficit we face today? What did the evil attacks do to our emotional being and how we view the world in general?
My daughter — the first to alert me to the attack on the first tower in New York — found her college friends and safe haven that day. My co-workers made it home and back to work. Our military heroes went out and sacrificed to make those responsible pay. The costs of that day still grow.
Ten years ago, Perkinsonwas a supervisory training instructor at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Va. Today, he is production training superintendent