9/11 Inspires Man To Serve Country, Haverford Township

David Cullen doesn’t consider himself a hero, or anything he did as heroic. In fact, the 2004 graduate and former Fords’ football player feels it’s an insult for anyone to consider him even close to that.

Yet before he set his bag down on a base in Eastern Afghanistan, he was treating his first casualty as an Army medic. Yet everyone around him, everyone close to him, is proud of him for his service to his country, proud that he put on a uniform and put his life on the line for them.

It’s why Cullen views the 10th anniversary of the tragic events that transpired on 9/11 a day to reflect on all the firemen, policemen and EMS workers that lost their lives that fateful day.

It reminds Cullen, an EMS volunteer for the , of what people did to save others. On Sunday, Cullen beared a wreath at Rosemont Park for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in Media. He may even reach back to a place in his own history when he was deployed in Khowst Province in April 2010, with bullets whizzing by his head and lives to save of his own.

“I’m under the belief everyone should do service and give back, and one of the things I learned there is that we absolutely take this country for granted, and I have no problem saying that, because no one knows the reality and what those guys are really doing over there,” Cullen said. “There are some guys that have been through absolute hell, and they go back. When you’re over there, you see acts of valor every day, some more momentous than others.

“I don’t think what I did personally was valorous, but what the guys did around me, yes what they did was. My fellow medics and I did everything possible to make sure our soldiers were cared for. But, still, it would be an insult to think of me as a hero. In my mind, a hero, and I saw a few over there, is what those guys did every day. But to say I’m one, not in a lifetime. Not compared to what those other guys have been through and done.”

Cullen is 6-foot-1, 240 pounds, a little larger than his playing days at Haverford High School, when he was a quarterback his junior year before being switched to running back as a senior. He attended Utah State for three semesters before going on a two-year Mormon mission to England, and right after, joined the Army national guard.

“As soon as I got back from training, my platoon sergeant came up to me and said, ‘Get ready, we’re going overseas,’ I won’t forget that day,” Cullen said. “I trained to be a medic. I couldn’t just join. I wanted to do something that would be applicable to the outside world. I was aware going in that I was a target by the enemy, but when you’re treating someone, you don’t think about it.”

Upon landing in Khowst Province in early April, 2010, the first thing Cullen saw was mountains, endless, endless amounts of rugged, uneven terrain. He remembers first landing with a few he came with from Utah. They all looked at each and started to laugh, because it was just like they had been dropped back in Utah.

Cullen found out quickly, however, the mountain ranges of Afghanistan carried an ominous tone.

“When we got to a more remote area, we found it wasn’t Utah,” Cullen recalled. “The mountains in Utah, they’re peaceful. The mountains and hills of Afghanistan look extremely harsh. The face of it, it’s just that, it looks like a face, mean and unforgiving. When you’re looking at it, or going up them, it feels unforgiving. We had a lot of injuries from them alone, walking up that terrain. You had jagged rock, falling rocks. I’ll forget the sheep and goats. They stood there almost perpendicular to the mountains and hills.”

When Cullen went to a remote, active area, an event took place within touchdown of the first day. He was treating soldiers with gun-shot and shrapnel wounds.

“It came right at me; I would say at that point, it became pretty real,” Cullen recalled. “What I personally dealt with, I compartmentalizes, that was me in Afghanistan. People have it harder that don’t have loving parents and a support structure back home. I have that.”

Cullen was 15 when 9/11 occurred. He was a sophomore sitting in homeroom at Haverford High School. He joined the Llanerch Fire Co. in December 2001.

“I always wanted to do something like that, but 9/11 pushed me into making it more public service,” Cullen said. “For me, 9/11 reminds me of what people did that day. The firemen and policeman that went into those buildings. It’s hard for the ones that remain. In my mind, I would hope anyone else would do that for me. I think they would.”

But Cullen is going to have to face something he doesn’t want to acknowledge. That his sacrifice is held high, that 9/11 means remembering what he did.

There’s an eight-year gap between David and his younger brother Dylan, a senior . Dylan was 7 when 9/11 happened. When David was on his two-year Mormon mission, he was only able to talk to his brother and his family over the phone four times. When he got back home, David was able to stay for about a month before he left for Army medic training. Now David doesn’t miss a game Dylan’s playing in, and Dylan doesn’t miss what his brother surrendered for him.

“My brother is my hero, and I have no problem saying that, he might not like to hear it, but he is,” Dylan said. “He’s told me a few of the stories from over there and I’ve seen a few traumas as an EMS. That’s a walk in the park compared what he saw. He saw things I hope to never see in my life.”

David had friends he played football and baseball with that didn’t come back. He remembers their faces. To David, that’s what 9-11 is about, “remembering those that didn’t come back,” David said. “I saw things I don’t want my kids to see, or my brother or my mother. I saw soldiers, our soldiers die. They are the real heroes. You try to live in their memory. That’s what 9-11 means to me.”