On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, the unthinkable happened, and one now-Sparta resident watched some of the events unfold live as the country she had adopted and then later promised to serve and protect burned with pillars of smoke rising before her for days.
For Adviya Rabchenia, war was not something new. She and her family had escaped the war-torn country of Bosnia, in 1994, coming to the United States through and landing in Cookeville, Tennessee, where the then teenaged girl had to learn to adapt to a new country where the people lived fast, moved about freely, and spoke a different language, but it didn’t take long for her to realize all of the potential that her new home had to offer.
“Leaving all of my friends behind, and then being held back in school because I did not speak English was difficult,” Rabchenia recalled, but admitted that she quickly fell in love with the new-found freedoms that her family enjoyed. “Getting a job and buying a car, having money, and being able to go anywhere. That was freedom to me then.”
After high school, Rabchenia decided she wanted to give back to the country who had given her family so much. In 1999, she joined the United States Navy with the understanding that the freedoms she now loved needed to be protected. Rabchenia knew that peace came from knowing that other countries like those in her old world were aware her new country was big and powerful and not to be messed with.
But, then, on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, while Rabchenia was on the USS Detroit AOE-4, stationed at the Earle, NJ Weapons Station and docked at a two-mile long pier across from Manhattan, New York, someone decided to test the superpowers of her new country.
“It was like a bully punching the coolest kid on the playground in the gut and the kid going down on his knees,” she said, explaining the feelings of that morning as she watched the Twin Towers burn. “There was a lot of confusion and unbelief. It made me and everyone realize that America wasn’t immune.”
Rabchenia said her naval ship happened to be at the pier as they were preparing for a scheduled Middle East deployment, but it didn’t take long for the seriousness of the new situation to set in. Thoughts among the crew and the entire Navy command turned to the USS Cole, which had been bombed while it sat in port just a year before.
“U.S. ships were always possible targets,” Rabchenia said.
While things were happening behind the scenes to reinforce the security of the entire country, she and the crew received orders to get underway, saying that the ship would be safer out to sea than sitting at the pier.
“We had to get underway in a hurry, which we did, but most of the crew wasn’t onboard,” she said.
For Rabchenia, war wasn’t new, and thoughts of her first home came back.
“This wasn’t a war like we experienced in Bosnia,” she said. “For most people in America, life didn’t change too much. They still had electricity and food on their tables, but it was still war. It made me realize that life is so fragile and uncertain - that there is so much evil in the world for no reason. This time it was different in regard to what I could do about that evil. We, as the United States Armed Forces, were going to get back up and go find the bully and take care of business or die trying.”
Rabchenia said the USS Detroit stayed out to sea for a few days watching the smoke from the towers rise the entire time, before it was deemed safe to return to the port and pick up the rest of their crew and supplies and head out early for a six month-deployment to the Mediterranean Sea.
“We were so young and so diverse, but we were all able to come together as a crew,” Rabchenia said.
She looks back on those days and months that followed, days that were supposed to be filled with fun trips as her ship pulled into each port along the way. However, they were filled with caution and security details and the seriousness of growing up in war.
“It really shows how our military is a perfect example of diversity and how we can all work together for greater good,” she said.
Twenty years later, Rabchenia said she hopes that, as a country, America has learned, and remembers, and grows from those terrifying moments.
“There are some countries that just hate us,” she said. “They live to hate. It’s hard for Americans to understand that kind of conflict.”
Rabchenia said that the way of life in her new country is still the goal for many, though. She hopes that from those events 20 years ago, Americans learned to protect that way of life.
“We have to take care of America first,” she said. “If there is no America, there isn’t much else. America is the hope in a lot of Bosnian eyes and other countries, too.”
Rabchenia said education is key to preserving the America that sits as a beacon of hope for so many. She said teaching the generations that didn’t experience the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 is important.
“We have to teach them why it happened, who wants to cause us harm, why things are the way they are, why we have our beliefs, and what those beliefs are,” she said. “We can’t walk around happy-go-lucky all of the time. We have to teach them the reality of what else is out there. We have to preserve the U.S. Constitution and the real meaning of why things were written.”
Recently, Rabchenia was able to take her own children, ages 11 and 9, to visit her home country and spend time running in the streets and fields that she grew up playing in and visiting with cousins and family who will likely never leave those streets. And, while the country isn’t under fire, and war is not an imminent threat at the moment, the difference between her two countries is still very broad.
“I hope that they see that we really need to appreciate what we have and not take anything for granted,” she said of the lessons she hopes her children learned through the experience. “I hope that they thank God every day for what we have here in America.”
As for the future, Rabchenia said she doesn’t live in fear. She lives in the strongest country in the world, the one that is the “cool kid” on the playground, the one that takes a hit but jumps right back up and fights back, the one that stands tall and refuses to be counted out, the one that sometimes seems to get off track but can always be counted on to be there fighting for what’s right and standing up for those who can’t, the one who will protect others – even a little non-English speaking girl from the tiny country of Bosnia – in their time of need.
So, when Rabchenia looks back at the events that unfolded on Sept. 11, 2001, she also looks back on the events that unfolded in the days and months after. Those are the events that she hopes are taught to her children and their children. That is America.
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