I can admit it.  I am a control freak.  Those that have worked with (or for) me can offer personal testimony of such.  Worse yet, anyone who has ever climbed with me on an extended expedition will have horror stories about the depth of my control needs; everything from the required stirring of the food to keep it from burning to the pan while cooking the team’s meal to whether or not the team turns back from the summit attempt.

That being said, the opposite is equally true.  I hate being unable to control things that can adversely impact me or my goals.

When applied to the world of high altitudes and mountain landscapes, that hatred, that absence of control, has cost me and my fellow team members many a mountain summit.  Earthquakes, rock fall, avalanches, and lightning storms are high on my list of, “Holy crap! These things will kill me (us).” no matter how well equipped, well trained, or well intentioned I (or we) may be.  Granite Mountain in Montana and Gannett in Wyoming are classic examples of my making the team decision to turn back from the summit for reasons of the increased possibility for slab avalanches, reduced visibility, or approaching lightning storms.  Both of these mountains required several attempts and hundreds of miles of trail while carrying heavy packs; all because of my decisions to avoid the lack of control over things which are, by definition, beyond control.

Sometime in the early morning hours of September 11, 2001, I was forcefully wakened from a heavy sleep.  At the time, I was attending Northwestern University’s School of Police Staff and Command.  Being away from the family for 10 weeks and living out of a hotel room has never been one of my favorite things.  Trying to make the best of the situation, I had rented a hotel room with a kitchenette so I could avoid the extra pounds and added expenses sure to come from ten weeks of restaurant meals.

I had gone to sleep on the night before, September 10, 2001, blissfully unaware of changes that had already been set in place that would impact the coming morning.  Something that I had cooked that night did not agree with me.  Nor did it intend to stay with me.

Let me now add just one more thing to the list of things that I dread because they remain outside of my control.  I abhor vomiting.  I will go to great lengths to avoid it.  The tastes, the noises, the gut-wrenching convulsions, the gagging from the heaves even well after the deed is done; these are all things that happen to me despite my best intentions and wishes.  For this reason, I am a professional at the Lamaze technique and have a long history of working through many hours of discomfort to avoid the reflexive nature of vomiting.  Yet, in the very early hours of September 11, 2001, the unmistakable signals of the impending Linda Blair portrayal yanked me from a sound sleep.

I was sick. No doubt about it.  Not just a little bit.  I was bona-fide, green-hued, intestinally twisty-tied sick.  This day was not going to be good. 

As I sat on the edge of the hotel bed, bleary eyed, and concentrating solely on methodical breathing aimed at calming the roiling seas inside me, I turned on the TV, mostly so I had something to hear other than the churning cauldron in my abdomen.

What I saw on the TV that morning was difficult to comprehend, and indeed, it all felt and seemed completely surrealistic to me, as if the happenings on the TV were, in fact, a symptom of the illness racking my body.  One of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center was on fire: smoke was billowing from its otherwise pristine and simple lines.  Even as I listened to the uncertainty in the voices of the commentators and their frantic attempts to understand themselves what was occurring or more accurately (from their current point of view) what had occurred, it seemed to me at the time to be something of small import to me and my family and clearly less important than the rising urgency of the illness clamoring for my undivided attention.

I left the TV with its uncertain coverage of what had happened to the Tower and hastened to the bathroom where I unsuccessfully attempted to avoid the inevitable.  After I had caught my breath and restored both my composure and my dignity, exhausted, I returned to sit on the edge of the bed in front of the TV wondering if I could still muster the will to attempt to attend the day’s training still before me.  Then, it happened.  The second Tower was intentionally struck by the unmistakable form of a large passenger plane.

Gone in an instant was the uncertainty of what was occurring in our nation.  Forgotten, although only temporarily, was the suffering from the illness which defied my control.  As a nation, we all, nearly simultaneously, realized that our world had just changed in a fraction of a second, all before our very eyes, and live on TV.

As generations before mine had remembered the moment, emblazoned forever into their collective memory, the moment in which they had learned of seminal and far-reaching changes in their lives which had occurred far beyond their homes, their small towns, rural farms, or urban apartments, my generation would remember this very moment for the rest of their lives. 

A singular shot fired from an unknown militia-man near the Old North Bridge at Lexington, the shelling at Fort Sumter, Lincoln’s assassination, Pearl Harbor, D-day, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Dr. King, and my own recollections of Neil Armstrong’s “one small step”, and the heartbreaking disasters of Challenger and Columbia, were all now joined by the horrific events of what was to become known as simply “9-11” in the national memory of this great nation.

Desperate for human contact, anyone to share my fears and thoughts with, and incapable of facing such a day alone, I forced myself to commit to attending Staff and Command despite even a second urgent trip to the bathroom.  I dressed and drove to the classroom where at least I would be surrounded by similar law enforcement executives and professionals; men and women with whom I shared a common knowledge and defined responsibilities to our individual communities.  Men and women who would know and understand what I was feeling and thinking.

As a group, we pretended to try to get through the first session of the day as if what was occurring in the East was not more pressing than the potential needs of our police agencies in the West.  During the first break between classes, huddled around a deploringly small TV in the lobby, we watched one of the Towers dissolve into an evil, malevolent cloud of dust that looked like a living thing of evil personified as it enveloped the buildings, vehicles, men, women, everything.

As a nation, we all gasped simultaneously, realizing with horror the many lives so callously extinguished in mere seconds as we had watched so helplessly, so unable to do anything, so out of control thousands of miles away.  As a nation, each and every man, woman, and child all imagined, at the same time, what it would have been like to have been on the upper floors of the Tower as it began to collapse.  As a nation, through the depths of despair and waves of horror, our anger and righteous indignation began to burn and catch fire within our very souls.

As nearly every senior law enforcement officer at the time could attest, we had all seen photographs taken of the scene of the first major incident at the World Trade Center, a vehicle born bomb that, had it been done more carefully, could have resulted in a similar tragedy some years before.  From those photographs, we had long ago digested just how many firemen and police officers would rush to the scene, would drop whatever they were doing and run to the danger, with or without orders.  Those photos had been shown to police officers all over the nation as part of a curriculum designed to help us better manage such tragedies.  The sheer volume of emergency response vehicles that had arrived at the scene effectively blocked any access to the World Trade Center for blocks in every direction and testified to the willingness of fire and police personnel to enter into danger.

But, standing in that group in front of a small TV, we all knew the truth.  We all knew that, despite the subsequent training every cop in New York must have undergone since the last World Trade Center event, countless police officers and firemen had gone toward the danger, had entered the Towers, had been helping others at the scene of the World Trade Center.  Even after one of the towers had already collapsed, they had still gone in, had still gone up, had still gone to places where every human instinct cried out to not go, they had gone anyway.

In the days that followed, the numbers and lists grew.  Although those growing numbers and lists represented our fallen brothers and sisters, reaching mind-numbing highs and lengths, something else began to grow.  Our pride also began to grow.  For those of us that were involved in public safety on 9-11, our pride in our professions, our pride in our missions, and our pride and respect for our fallen comrades would never be higher.  Everything we did, we did better because they had gone in, because they had gone up.

At one point, I ran from the group of shocked and stunned police professionals, barely making it to the nearest bathroom in time for yet another wave of illness arriving to add to the misery and pain of the debilitating images we had just witnessed.  There was no longer any question: I was done for the day, the Staff and Command class was done for the day, and the nation was done for the day.

I called my wife as soon as I could.  Mostly so I could hear her voice.  Or was it for her to hear mine?  We talked several times that day. 

I have spent many a lonely night in distant hotel rooms far from my family.  That day was beyond lonely.  I was grateful beyond belief when I was finally joined by my good friend, Pat, who had been my primary field training officer so many years ago and with whom I had shared numerous adventures throughout my career.

For a while, the lists and numbers stabilized: 71 Police officers, 343 Fire Fighters were lost on that day, not including a retired New Mexico State Police Officer on Flight 93.  Now, however, the lists and numbers have begun to grow yet again.  Our comrades that went to Ground Zero are now paying for their attention to duty.  They are paying for their will and drive to help, paying the price for the countless rest of us that had wished we could go and help at the World Trade Center for no other reason than to rid ourselves of the helplessness that we all felt because we could not be there.  These same officers and firefighters are now succumbing to progressive pulmonary diseases, a result of toxins which they willingly entered into.  They are paying because they went there.

As the tenth anniversary of 9-11 approaches, the nation yet again is remembering.  Let us lead the way in honoring and remembering those that went in, those that went up, and those that went there.

Let us honor the memory of those who gave their lives.  Let us honor their spouses, their children, their parents, their families.  Let us honor their co-workers, their agencies, and their friends who all picked up and carried on with their jobs despite the despair, the discouragement, the uncertainty, the fear, and the pain.

Let us remember and embrace the pride which we felt ten years ago as we learned the fate of so many of our comrades.  Let us remember and commit yet again, as we did in the months following 9-11, to do our jobs better, to be kinder, to do more, because they went in, because they went up.

Let us not forget those who stood among us that day, who, despite already giving so much to their communities as police officers and fire fighters, felt compelled to do more.  Let us honor and remember those who left our agencies, who left their families, who left their valuable and necessary service to their communities and willingly went to lands far from home so that others would not suffer the fate of those on the planes, those in the Towers, those on the ground, and those that went in, those that went up.  Let us NEVER forget those who did not come home from Iraq and Afghanistan so that our families can be safer, even though they had already done so much. 

Detective James Cawley of the Salt Lake City Police and Sergeant Jim Thode of the Farmington NM Police are just two of the many professionals, police officers and fire fighters, that have not come home.  As a nation, we have sent many in, sent many up, and sent many over there.  As a nation, we cannot forget.

Yes, the numbers of the fallen and lists of their names continue to grow with those that have given all because of the events of September 11, 2001.

As a nation, we must NEVER FORGET!

All of which brings me back to the beginning of this long, yet cathartic, dissertation.  Control, and the lack thereof.

September 11, 2001 was the epitome of the kind of helplessness, the inability to control my own destiny, which I detest and avoid.  Yet, the very nature of Law Enforcement and Fire Fighting is replete with things beyond our control.  This year has been particularly tragic for police officers who were just doing their jobs, yet never made it home at the end of the day.  Taken from us by persons and circumstances difficult to predict and nearly impossible to be constantly prepared to combat.  An example would be the recent loss of a decent man, who moments before had purchased a meal for a hungry child, then entered his squad car and was shot while driving down the road, without warning, without provocation, by a coward intent only on killing a cop, any cop.

I have a difficult time believing that I am the only cop out there disturbed by the random nature of such a tragedy.  It reminds me of lightning strikes or the calving of glaciers high on the mountain above you.  Those objective, natural hazards come with the business of venturing into the rarefied air of mountaineering, so we avoid them where possible and mitigate them when we can’t.  Unlike those hazards, the random killing of officers looms larger and infinitely more evil.

In 2003, while taking part in the Cops on Top September 11^th Memorial Climbs, I stood on the summit of Borah Peak, at 12,662 feet, the highest mountain in Idaho.  I opened the summit registry and scanned back to the previous year’s entry on 9-11-2002.  There, members of the Cops on Top team had recorded fitting and touching memorials to the fallen officers of 9-11.  Their respect and pride for their profession was obvious.

Intrigued, I searched farther back in the registry entries till I found the entries of climbers that had stood on the summit of Borah Peak on September 11, 2001.  Their registry entries were the source of involuntary memories, emotions, and hope for the future of this nation.

They had started from the base early in the morning as is the custom for climbing a mountain with such a high prominence.  When they left their cars, they had no idea of the events preparing to unfold later that day.  After they reached the summit, they had called home for the obligatory announcement to family and friends that they had achieved their goal, survived their adventure (thus far), and the habitual proclamations of the beauty and grandeur of the view from the top.  It was then that they had been given the sobering news of what had occurred. 

I was struck by how they had documented in the summit registry their very specific recognition that the world had changed beneath them, their earnest prayer for the dead and dying, their hopes for the nation, and their commitment to forge onward.  Although they were far away, in one of the more truly remote areas of the nation, and perhaps feeling more helpless and isolated than any other group in the nation, I could clearly envision them tightening their packs, whispering a silent prayer, and stoically forging onward into the unknown as they now turned downward toward their cars and toward a reality changed from the one which they had left only hours before.  Having read their recorded thoughts and registry entries, on the summit of Borah, now two years later, I hugged my climbing companion, Stu Frink of the Washington State Patrol, and I shed tears for them, climbers I will never meet, as well as the fallen.

On September 11, 2011, this nation will pause to remember.  However, across the nation small groups of police officers and fire fighters will remember in their own, unique way.  As members of the Cops on Top organization, they will remember their fallen on the tops of the highest points of their individual states. 

Having just recently completed the record setting 2011 Summit for Heroes Memorial Climbs in June of this year, Cops on Top has knowingly decided and not attempted to formally organize the annual September 11^th Memorial Climbs, in part because we knew that team members would be obligated elsewhere on this national day of remembering.  Yet, even without formal organization, teams will be going anyway.  They will be going to remember.  They will be going to honor.  They will be going because others went in, because others went up, because others went there.  Just as those cops and firemen did before them, as cops and firemen have done for generations, they will be going because they are cops and firemen.

For just the second time in the intervening ten years since the events of 9-11, I will not be personally able to participate in a state highpoint memorial climb on September 11.  Obligations will take me away from my family and I will be negotiating the world of air travel on a day when tensions will be high and security measures extreme.  None the less, I imagine the flights will be quiet and filled with soul-searching as I remember the fallen in mine own way.

Wherever you find yourself on this upcoming solemn anniversary, pause to remember, pause to commit to being better than you were, pause to thank God that you have known those men and women that go forward when they should go back, those that go up when they should flee far away, and those that volunteer to leave everything they have to ensure your family’s freedom and safety, even though they know they may not come home.

We invite you, the extended family of Cops on Top, to attend where possible, a trip to your state’s highest point in remembrance of those lost on 9-11.  At the very least, we invite you to attend any one of the countless ceremonies across the nation where we, the nation, will collectively remember the events of 9-11.  In either case, we implore you to remember the bravery, the discipline, and the resolve of those that went in, those that went up, and those that went over there, for us.

Remember.

We will NEVER forget.

Keith McPheeters

Cops on Top

8-23-2011

June 13, 2011     2300 hours

Exactly ten years ago on this date, the 2001 Cops on Top Denali expedition team was negotiating the final steps of Sixteen Ridge on Denali's West Buttress Route on our way to our High Camp.  It was cold, and I do mean cold.  Later that night, my Sherpa weather instrument's anemometer would freeze.  Its last reading: -45 degrees Fahrenheit, with sustained winds at 55mph.  I am not sure that the windchill chart even goes that high.  For now, the winds were not so intensive, but the dangers were increasing and being caught on the unprotected ridgeline would be a death sentence.

Reasonable people do not glady go into such an environment.  Neither do reasonable people go into the environments in which Police Officers storm into on a daily basis.

The next day we would take our rest day as we prepared for our eventual summit day on the 15th of June.  It would be a significant day for me, followed by yet another.

As the sun began to burn through the clouds that had arrived earlier in the morning and cast it warming rays on our tents, we would enjoy wonderful weather incongruant with yesterday's winds and numbing temperatures.  With two of our team still asleep, Stu Frink of the Washington State Patrol and I would slip away on a private mission.  Two years earlier, I had gone to the nearby highest point on the ridge which overlooked Rescue Gully.  With difficulty, I had chopped as many of Denali's few accessible rocks free of the ice in which they were seemingly eternally bound which my tired ice axe could find in that frozen venue.  Dejectedly, and utterly deflated, I had piled those rocks together and had humbly placed inside them precious and sacred items. 

Those items had not left my body for over two weeks, carefully stowed inside an inner pocket of my cold weather clothing, I had slept with them and struggled with them, only to carry them that high... and no higher.  Buried in that small pile of rocks would be a small, etched, metal plate bearing our collective hopes and prayers that our fellow colleague would not be forgotten.  Crafted by the men and women of the Cortez, Colorado Police Department, the front of the plate held an etched memorial to Officer Dale Claxton; their friend and co-worker who had given his life in service to the citizens of Colorado.  The reverse contained a photo of an officer, a father, a husband, a public servant... a hero.  I would recognize that photo for the rest of my life.  That simple, candid photograph of Officer Dale Claxton appeared to me that Dale had not even known it was being taken.  He was not looking at the camera.  Instead, he was preoccupied, looking down at something else, oblivious to the camera capturing him as he carried out the responsibilities of his chosen profession.  It symbolized, in my own mind, the very character and nature of Dale Claxton.  It shouted that he had calmly and quietly gone about his business protecting the good people of Cortez.  No fanfare.  No self aggrandizing.  Just Dale Claxton doing the job he had loved.

Under the stress of the moment, I had seized hold of the poetic image in my mind of the memory of Dale Claxton's life and sacrifice holding steady watch over the steep and dangerous Rescue Gully, where climbers too injured or ill to descend the mountain's Headwall would be lowered to safety and rescue.  I needed that image.  I needed to find something worth clinging to in leaving the mountain without having achieved my goals.

With my climbing partner, Kent O'Donnell, now a Sergeant of the Farmington Police Department, we had knelt over top of the small cairn I had fashioned from those few rocks and took a picture of us with Dale's plaque.  Kent was so exhausted from altitude illness, that he still wore his pack upon his back.  In true Marine fashion, he was focused on the mission ahead: our descent from High Camp down the headwall of the West Buttress.  Too strong and too proud to acknowledge it, I sensed that he was unsure if he would have the strength to get the backpack back on if he removed it to take this humble photograph.  My respect for him in that moment was never greater.

We buried the plaque, and a few documents from Dale's family which had been entrusted into our care, at the base of the rock cairn.  I placed a bamboo wand into the rocks, turned and descended 6,000 feet to our Camp III at 11,000 feet. 

A few hours earlier, in private, I had wept on the ridge knowing that I would not be able to keep my word to the Claxton Family.  That I would not carry Dale's memory to the summit of North America.  Once having made the decision to descend, I had called home to announce the decision.  The strain in my voice on that recorded phone message haunts me to this day.

As we left that small pile of rocks above Rescue Gully, I vowed that I would return and finish what we had started... and had nearly succeeded in completing.

Now, two years later, Stu and I searched the ridge for the cairn and bamboo wand holding Dale Claxton's plaque.  It was nowhere to be seen.  I was crushed.  I assumed that the weather on Sixteen Ridge was too much to expect even the rocks to survive the ferocious winds that scour the ridge.  Two years of some of the most extreme storms on the planet had blasted the ridge.

Then, like in a Hollywood movie, a beam of sunshine burst from the clouds above, and streamed down to highlight perfectly a small pile of rocks near the edge of the mountain's face.  There was the small cairn!  I knew then, with all of my heart, that we would be destined to reach the summit of Denali... that my promise to the Claxton family would be fulfilled.

When we reached the small cairn, we found the bamboo wand had been cut as cleanly as with a scalpel at exactly the highest point from where it extended from its rock foundation.  I could only imagine the force of such winds that could surgically slice bamboo, the one material in the world that frays and splinters at every opportunity.  Inside, as pristine as the day Kent and I had buried them two years ago, we found all of the items memorializing Officer Dal Claxton's life.  With a smile on our faces and assurance in our hearts, we added them to the collection of sacred items from the family of Trooper James Saunders of the Washington State Patrol.  We returned to our camp with our augmented treasure to share the story with Rocky Fails and Charlie Newman, our two team companions.

Those items, from the Saunders family, were also forever etched into my memory.  A sealed letter from Jim's loving parents. An open letter from his wife.  And heartbreakingly, a crayon picture drawn by Jim's two children: his daughter, and the son that had yet been unborn at the time of his death.  I had wept openly in the presence of hardened and proud men when I had read what his loving wife had written upon that open letter to her fallen husband and the father of her chidren.  I could only envision such a letter written to me from my children and wife.

The next day, we arrived at the summit of North America: 20,320 feet above sea-level, on the top of Denali.  For more than four years I had spent a fortune of my personal money, weeks away from my family, and much of the equity I had built with my children.... all to reach this point.  The last few yards of the summit ridge, a narrow path bounded on one side by a 6,000 foot drop and a thousand deadly feet on the other side, tears streamed from my eyes yet again on this mountain.  Immediately they froze to my face and eyelashes, making the last few steps of my journey among the most dangerous I have ever taken.  And,--- among the most joy-ridden of my life.

We made our memorial to two brave men on the summit of Denali.  Two men I had never met.  Two men to whom I shared a common calling.  Two men that I loved and respected.  Two men that I would NEVER forget!

I will reserve the story of what occurred on the summit of Denali that day for another time.

After a successful summit of Denali, we, the original founders of Cops on Top, planned to take Cops on Top's message to the summit of Aconcagua the next year.  Those plans were shaken and eliminated completely just a few short months later when planes hi-jacked over the skies of America forever impacted the story of Law Enforcement's sacrifice in the United States.  From the ashes of that national tragedy was born the concept of the annual Summit for Heroes and September 11 Memorial Climbs. 

In a few days, an amazing number of men, women, and children will stand upon the highest points of their respective states in honor of our fallen brothers and sisters.  Some will cheer their achievement.  Some, like I did on that summit ten years ago, will weep for the fallen.  Yet, all of us, each in our own way, will accomplish one thing.  On that day, our fallen loved ones and comrades will be remembered.  Their families will know that yet again, their loved ones have not been forgotten.  And that my friends, is worth every painful step, every gasp for air in ever thinning heights, every drop of sweat shed in even the lowest of highpoints, and every tear shed on behalf of those we salute and we honor during the Summit for Heroes. 

May God bless and be with us all.  May we continue in bold fashion to bring honor to our profession and to the memories of our fallen.  May we NEVER forget!

Captain Keith McPheeters. 

Cops on Top is proud to announce the availability of official Team Summit Banners for purchase from the Team's website. The summit flags are especially intended for display on local summits during the Summit for Heroes and September 11 Memorial Climbs. Contact Cops on Top if you would like to purchase one of these custom made, high-quality, summit flags for use in your state.

They're 12" high by 18" long and made of light-weight, wind-catching, nylon, complete with grommets. Small enough to carry to the summit, sturdy enough to fly proudly at any high camp, and beautiful enough to improve any summit photo... or hang proudly on the wall bearing the summit team's signatures!

Flags are available for a donation of $25 (plus $5 for shipping). Please contact Cops on Top to place your order.