Changed by 9/11: Locals Embrace Family, Freedom Following Tragedy

Tragedy affects us all differently, a statement that is represented by the varied views of residents within the town. Some have a stronger relationship with their family, others want to see our government do more to protect our country.

Here are some views expressed by your neighbors.

"Well, I enjoy life now. I make sure I enjoy the moment instead of working 50 hours a week trying to trade overseas. Now I’m Mr. Mom; I enjoy the moment."

–Charles Council, 42

"I’d say the biggest change for me after 9/11 was definitely the fact that I didn’t take our freedom for granted anymore. Definitely before 9/11 I think we all just went about our days, you know and really didn’t think twice about it. I feel like after the tragedy happened it made us think a lot more about how lucky we are to live in a country like we live in, and you know how great our military and our government is.”

--Maria McGowan, 30

"Overall I didn’t let it affect me. I still travel the way I want to travel; unfortunately we have to go through a little more screening, but you know it comes with the territory. Just a little more vigilant. You know, just make sure that you don’t see bags sitting around anywhere with nobody attending them whether it’s on the sidewalk, walking down the street, at an airport, etc. I mean those are the type of things that affected me. I mean, you know, it was not a great day in American history, but I had my eyes glued to the TV that whole day. But other than that, you know you got to move forward; you can’t let it affect you."

–Bob Desio, 52

"Well, since 9/11, myself being a National Guardsman, when 9/11 happened we were activated, and I had to go down to the scene, the crime scene let’s say and assist. You know we had somewhat Martial Law set up, so we had to set security around. And I’m in the aviation unit so what we do is we flew in support, flew the mayor around and just gave support any way we can. Since then I was deployed to Iraq twice due to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Once in 2004, 2005 and my most recent one was 2008 to 2009 deployment. Both deployments were over a year long, and we worked hard on achieving our goal. Since the 9/11 event you know the army has been gainfully employed, let’s say in both theatres of operation between Iraq and Afghanistan. It naturally puts a strain on my personal, my family life. My son basically had to start his first two years of high school without me here – about a year and a half. Then he just graduated from high school, and it looks pending another deployment next year. It affects my life dearly.  I also lost several friends that day. I lost a dear friend from high school, who was a quarterback in high school. We graduated from Central Islip High School in 1981 - same as Kevin Bracken who was a New York City fireman. And I had lost several other friends also, there was another fireman and police officer. It has affected me strongly."

–Andy Hernandez, 47 – 1st Sergeant, 3/142 ASB HHC

"I was deeply saddened like most of the people in the country and I was appalled at the reactions from some of the foreigners. It affected the way I look at terrorism within our country and it made me more aware of the fact that I want to do more to prevent it. We have to stem it from its beginnings and it's well beyond its beginnings now. Aside from that I am very proud of our country, although recently I have had some serious doubts about our leadership."

– Tom Matty, 72

“Travelling is a lot harder 10 years later. My sister lives in Germany so going there, there’s more checkpoints, more things like that … there’s more security now. I think it definitely affected everyone in the United States a lot, I think that we feel a lot less secure in our lifestyles than we used to, especially in the United States. We know now that we can be touched by the outside more than we ever thought was possible in the past 10 years … you can’t be apathetic anymore, you have to know what’s going on.”

– Erik Schmid

Dayna Pagano, Kenyon Hopkin, Rita Egan and Smithtown Patch Editor Peter Verry contributed to this report.