Helping, Not Fighting: Sept. 11 Pushed Village Firefighter to Join the Guard

Dave Scanlan was only a sophomore in high school when the Sept. 11 attacks happened. But it was that event that partially spurred him to join the National Guard when he turned 18 in 2004.

Enlisting because of the tragedy of that 2001 day wasn't an uncommon response for men and women in the United States. However, Scanlan, a sergeant with the where he serves as a firefighter and paramedic, was very particular about why he wanted to join. Serving his country wasn't about fighting an enemy. It was about helping others.

"I stopped in at a recruiter, told them I wanted to be a medic ... You know, if that position wasn't available I probably wasn't interested," Scanlan said. "It was more important to me help people get home to their families than just the guy kicking in doors. Which is kind of my rule. That's what I was drawn to. That's what I told them I wanted to do, and they were able to accommodate it." 

Helping Others in a War Zone

That desire to aid those in need is what has driven Scanlan to create a career in health care, which started with his military service. He went through training for nine months in 2004 and 2005, then got a job as an emergency room technician. He later went through the fire academy, joining the fire department in Posen. But as he was building his civilian life, Scanlan knew that eventually he'd be told to put that on hold and be shipped out halfway across the world.

In 2007, Scanlan was deployed to Iraq.

"It was kind of nerve-wracking because you're going somewhere that you really don't know a lot about. ... The news doesn't really give you a good perspective of what's happening there," Scanlan said. "Part of me was excited. It's what you train for. I use the comparison a lot: It's like training to be a fireman but never going to a fire."

In Iraq, Scanlan worked in a ground ambulance company that mobilized the injured out of combat areas.  

"My job was awesome," he said. "I mean, health care is rewarding regardless, but to know that you're helping your side, I guess, to play a role to make sure people get home to their families was important to us.

"We treated Americans. We treated people from Iraq. We treated third country nationals. ... Our scope of practice was just huge," he added. "We covered all of Kuwait and southern Iraq. It was such a huge area of responsibility."

'The World is Bigger Than Me'

That responsibility for Scanlan was coupled with the difficulties of working in a war zone, as well as dealing with a people and a culture completely alien to him. 

"It helps you not take for granted what you do here," he said. "Like if I take an ambulance call here, initially, you're like, 'What's the call for?' 'What am i going to need?' ... Whereas when you're in a combat zone, you're like, 'What routes are clear?' 'What areas are considered hostile?' 'What areas aren't considered hostile?' 'What sect of the Islam religion are they?' ... Not only are you checking your medical supplies and your vehicle, you're double- and triple-checking your maps, your evacuation areas, your ammunition. There's a lot more to take into consideration. The task of treating someone was simple in the big picture of things. To go there and do our job, well that was the easy part about it. It was getting from point A to point B that was hard."

"Some things that I would think would be easy (in the United States) would be difficult (here)," Scanlan added. "If we were going in to treat a civilian, especially a female, we had to ask her husband or father; they had to consent to us touching her. So there were times we weren't able to treat them. We had to remember to take a step back and look at the big picture. It's not our culture. It's not our country. That was difficult to deal with the different culture." 

Then there was the weather, which was a new adventure every day. Evenings would be freezing, and because of the ground composition, rains would create mud and weird flooding. And, of course, it was extremely hot.

"I remember getting off the plane, and I thought that the jets were still on from the plan, and they explained to me that that was just the breeze," Scanlan said.

Overall, Scanlan's time in Iraq broadened his perspective about himself and the world he lives in. It's an experience he doesn't regret.

"It reminded me that the world is bigger than me," he said. "It made me balance the things I want to do and have to do and kind of know the difference a little bit. It made me more responsible at that point."

Life Back Home

Returning stateside in 2008, Scanlan resumed his life. That year, he went through paramedic school, became engaged (the wedding will probably be next year) and bought a home in Midlothian. In 2009, his daughter, Khloe, was born, and he joined Frankfort's fire district in September of the following year. 

"I came home, and it felt like I was starting from scratch. I went right back work and did the things I used to do," Scanlan said. "There's not a lot of downtime to deployment. Not a lot of social activities. You can't go out with your friends to unwind. You can't go to a barbecue. You don't have that there. So to be able to come home and have leisure time and get back into playing sports or just spending time with your family, it was nice. ... I was so happy to come back and cut my grass."

A decade later, the ripple effects of Sept. 11 haven't diminished for Scanlan. If anything, they've echoed louder since the fire district acquired a steel beam from the World Trade Center, an artifact that Scanlan finds humbling and a constant reminder of how the world around him has changed since he was in high school.

"You look at the shape that (steel beam is) in. You think of the pressure, of the force it would take to twist steel like that, he said. "I can't wrap my mind around the enormity of that situation.

"The fallout of 9/11 has been so much bigger than the local impact," Scanlan added. "You think of all the people that died that day, they all have family members. You think of the immediate impact of that. You think of the financial impact we have with the stock market ever since then. The military affairs. ... Just 100 percent of our life has been impacted by what happened on one day 10 years later. So to preserve some of that feeling, to have that reminder is powerful." 

What About the Next Generation?

The aftermath of 9/11 continues for Scanlan close to home as well. He's fairly sure he'll be deployed again in the next two years, probably to Afghanistan. But instead of an 18-year-old just beginning life on his own, it will be as a father and (possibly) husband with more responsibilities.

"It will be harder this time," he said. "It's going to be hard to miss a year in development of my daughter's life. But my hat's off to the men and women who served before us. My generation, we have Skype, we have the Internet, we have satellite phones. The guys before us, they didn't have any of that. They had letters. it took them months to get letters. It doesn't make it any easier to leave, but it definitely doesn't make it harder."

And as a father, what will Scanlan tell his daughter about the attacks of that day in 2001?

"I don't know," he said. "It's one of those situations that it's going to be hard to sum it up for her. I suppose that every generation has its event, like they're the ones who can totally understand it. I'm not sure. I think at first I'll let her form her own opinions about, and it'll depend if she comes to me and asks me about it, the fallout and what happened afterwards."

This is one of a series of 9-11 portraits assembled by the Patch network for 9/11: The Decade After, a special report for Huffington Post. Find more photos on the Action America Facebook page.