You may retire, but it appears one never leaves the Navy.
Ed Ohlert had been out of the Navy for 15 years when his phone rang in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. The caller addressed him as “commander” and told him to report to Voice of America the next day. Listeners in China had questions about what had happened in the United States. Ohlert was to go on the radio and answer them.
A quarter-century later, the retired Navy commander told those gathered for Chowan County’s Veterans Day service that he still had no idea who placed the call. He did remember what people wanted to know. One caller feared the attacks meant world war. Another wanted to know whether the United States was going to attack China.
Ohlert was the featured speaker Wednesday, Nov. 11, at American Legion Edward G. Bond Post 40 in Edenton. Post Commander Ed Mathews called the 11 a.m. service to order, and Post 40 Chaplain Calvin Capehart offered the invocation. The Post 40 Honor Guard presented the colors, Rae Ohlert sang the national anthem and those gathered recited the Pledge of Allegiance together.
Four organizations placed memorial wreaths during the service. They were the Post 40 Honor Guard, the American Legion Unit 40 Auxiliary, the Albemarle Sound Submarine Veterans and the Edenton Tea Party Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.
When it came time to introduce the guest speaker, Mathews had a word for anyone who might have wondered how much there was to say about Ohlert’s career.
“I used up a whole cartridge of ink with this whole resume,” he said.
Ohlert graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, the Naval Postgraduate School, the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and the Naval War College. As a naval aviator, he flew A-4 and A-7 aircraft from the carriers USS Forrestal, USS John F. Kennedy and USS Nimitz. At the Pentagon, Mathews said, Ohlert worked on strategic nuclear plans and policy in support of the chief of naval operations and the secretary of defense. His assignments included the Tomahawk missile program and liaison work with Great Britain and France.
Ohlert took his audience back to the Iran hostage crisis, when he and his fellow aviators prepared to provide air cover for the American effort to rescue hostages in Tehran. The distance alone gives some idea of the assignment. By Ohlert’s account, the flight plan called for six refuelings. He recalled waiting aboard the carrier, ready to launch. When an accident in the desert brought the rescue attempt to an end, his flight was called off.
By September 2001, Ohlert was a civilian doing contract work with senior officials at the Pentagon. Like so many Americans that morning, he watched on television as the second plane struck the World Trade Center. The sight of that second strike, he told the audience, shaped his memory of how the country responded.
“I think that solidified America instantly,” he said.
The Voice of America broadcasts gave him a glimpse of how that same morning looked from the other side of the world. Ohlert spent hours taking questions. Some listeners in China, he understood, called from pay phones and then hurried back to their radios to hear his answer. He remembered hearing callers who struggled to frame a question in English, followed by someone whose delivery had the practiced poise of a diplomat.
Would the United States hold Pakistan accountable? Was China in danger? Ohlert recalled telling callers that there was no indication either country had been involved. Voice of America subsequently brought him back for a television broadcast that reached a wider audience.
In his civilian work, Ohlert helped cities prepare for major emergencies, including how to keep public agencies operating and communicating through a crisis. After Sept. 11, that work took him to New York City. He described watching an exercise from a rail car as a train pulled in and people playing the part of passengers began falling to the ground.
Emergency crews reached them quickly, he recalled. Some of the passengers had visible signs of injury. Others had simply collapsed. In their haste to help, responders missed what that difference might tell them about the danger they themselves faced. It was a lesson the city could take away from a drill and use to protect the people who would answer the next real call.
At the close of his remarks, Ohlert returned to the people he remembered most from Sept. 11. He spoke of firefighters, police officers and doctors, and of ordinary people with no emergency training who did what they could to help someone else get out of a burning building.
Candace Morgan of the Edenton Tea Party Chapter was the ceremony’s second guest speaker. Capehart offered the benediction, and Rae Ohlert sang “God Bless America” before Mathews dismissed the gathering.
Post 40 and the Edenton Tea Party Chapter also invited everyone to sign holiday cards for veterans in four North Carolina VA hospitals. VA coordinators will distribute the cards, and hospital staff will place one on each hospitalized veteran’s dinner tray over the holidays. For the veteran who opens it, the greeting will carry a few handwritten words from someone in Edenton who took the time to remember.
