HANCOCK COUNTY — As soon as the first tower fell, Paul Norton knew everything had changed forever.
Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Paul Norton was working at the United States Postal Service state headquarters in Indianapolis in 2001 and serving as a reservist in the Air National Guard. He was just starting his day on Sept. 11, 2001, when someone turned on the TV to show the scene of the north tower of the World Trade Center smoking from the wreckage of American Airlines Flight 11, which hijackers had crashed into.
Within minutes, Norton received a call on his cellphone: get to the base quick. Norton was the command post superintendent of the Air National Guard’s 181st Fighter Wing in Indianapolis, which later became the 181st Intelligence Wing, based in Terre Haute. Norton and his fellow Air National Guardsmen served as the protection for President George W. Bush as he was flown around the country in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
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“We had prepared heavily for the inevitable,” Norton recalled. “We were able to react as if we had been doing it every day all along. It was almost eerie.”
From his seat at the command post, Norton watched as thousands of commercial aircraft were grounded, until there were only five planes with clearance across the United States: Air Force One, two F-16 fighter jets to guard it, and two backups.
The president traveled all over the country that day, Norton remembered. His job was to oversee the fighters who protected the president’s aircraft from any possible threats, from another hijacked plane to surface-to-air missiles, he said.
It was a long, sleepless several days for the command post superintendent. He didn’t sleep until Sept. 14, he remembered — he was continuously on guard for 38 hours.
The effects of that day lasted much longer on his soul, Norton said.
“We thought it was going to be Pearl Harbor in multiple cities,” he said. “There was a camera rolling in my brain, wondering where next is going to be hit. I didn’t feel safe for a long time.”
In March 2002, Norton transferred to Bosnia, where he served as superintendent of one of the two Air Force bases in that country. It was a stressful deployment, with threats of snipers and dangerous zones throughout, he remembered.
He spent the last years of his career at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan in the Air Support Operations Service. Despite his age of 55, Norton was expected to train just as hard as the brightest and most bushy-tailed of the unit, completing 20-mile-long marches carrying all their gear, he remembered.
“We had to do what they did, we had to lead by example,” he said.
He retired from the Air Force and Air National Guard in 2011, after having served in Alaska, Indiana, Florida and Bosnia, for nearly 38 years. He wears a bracelet on his left wrist commemorating his military service with the dates engraved in the metal.
His service to the country and fellow veterans didn’t end there, however. But first, Norton had to care for himself.
He knew he had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, like so many others who see the horrors of war. The National Center for PTSD, a service of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, estimates some 12 to 20 percent of veterans receive a PTSD diagnosis, depending on what conflict they served during.
It was something he’d kept to himself for a long time, because at the time, he said being diagnosed with PTSD carried a big stigma and was as good as a ticket out of the military.
When Norton had a panic attack while attending the tree lighting in downtown Indianapolis in 2011, his wife suggested he look into something to help him cope with the disorder’s symptoms. She knew he liked to get his hands in the dirt, so she suggested he consider learning more about gardening.
In 2012, Norton went through the process of becoming a master gardener at the Purdue Extension office in Greenfield. He later was hired on as a part-time employee at the Greenfield Parks and Recreation Department, where he is tasked with keeping the flowers in hanging pots and concrete planters looking beautiful throughout the warm seasons.
“I get paid to keep my mind off the things I’ve seen,” he said. “The flowers, it’s peaceful; it’s a feel-good thing.”
However, he has a hard time sitting still, so it wasn’t long before Norton found himself involved in a myriad of veterans organizations in the Indianapolis area.
He’s a member of the American Legion, with the Historic Fort Benjamin Harrison Post 510, which he said is the fastest-growing post in the country. He said the group in the last six years has grown from about 35 members to more than 600.
Also a member of the Ft. Benjamin Harrison Veterans of Foreign Wars, Norton serves on the board of directors of the Veterans Support Council, which serves the mayors of Indianapolis, Southport, Beech Grove and Speedway. He also is a member of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Military Honor Guard, which provides flag ceremonies at events and military honors at funerals. The guard provides those honors at between 20 and 30 funerals a week, he said.
Through his work in serving veterans in the Indianapolis area, Norton met Heather Harvey, the veterans caseworker for Congressman Andre Carson’s Indianapolis office.
Harvey joked Norton must not sleep in order to do everything he does.
“He is literally involved in any possible aspect of veterans services,” Harvey said. “He’s one of those people that makes my job a lot easier.”
