Patrick Murphy, was a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy. An engineer by training, he served on the USS Sand Lance (SSN 660) a nuclear-power fast-attack submarine. According to his family, he loved the Navy and especially going to sea in submarines. His was later shore-lined with an appendicitis, never to sea on a sub again. Discouraged but not disheartened, he volunteered for extended duty at a Navy office in the Pentagon. As far as Patrick was concerned, if he couldn’t go to sea with his shipmates, he would make sure those and other shipmates like them had everything they needed and precisely where and when they did.  Patrick’s Pentagon office overlooked Arlington National Cemetery. From his office, Patrick saw the rolling terrain of the final resting place of so many American heroes, some of whom had served in submarines just as he had. Patrick was keenly aware of the sacrifice that the field of white crosses before him represented. It would seem reasonable that he would even pause from time to time and consider what those sacrifices meant to the families, the crews, America and the world. Having volunteered for extra work beyond his annual reserve commitment, Patrick stayed on longer and was again at work at the Pentagon now the morning of 9/11.  Patrick was killed with fellow officers and non-commissioned officers when the building was attacked. 

Patrick was a reader and huge movie fan. He loved a good story. Who doesn’t ? One thing about the best stories is that while they end, there is always more to tell. If you’ve ever read a great book or seen a powerful move and then do so a second time, you know what I mean. Although Patrick is no longer with us, having joined his brothers and sisters he once paused to look out his Pentagon window upon, we apply his personal tragedy and the tragedy of so many, in memory of the good that people like Patrick lived their very lives for. Each of us are the beneficiary of people like Patrick who served so we can be free to live, to love, to be loved and to work at the job we pick. The price Patrick and his like paid for us is one which we can never fully repay. Still, it is up to each of us to try. It seems the least we can do. Patrick’s Pause is dedicated to Patrick and others who fell on September 11, 2001 at the Pentagon, the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center and a lonely field in Shanksville Pennsylvania. 

Building on an existing Nutrien safety initiative which asked workers to periodically pause during their busy workday to consider their safety and that of those around them as well as to try and fulfill the modest request to remember those lost on that very day 19 years after 9/11, Patrick’s Pause was born. Each of you are respectfully requested to join us and take a moment to pause and consider the message of Patrick’s Pause.

As for Patrick, he was a cleaver guy and had a real sense of humor. His messages to shipmates, family and friends were a part of a story, the kind of story people like Patrick love to create and tell. The best part is that you can be part of this story too, one that gets better over time because you are engaged with it as you are even now by reading this. Please join us and be a part of the Patrick’s Pause.  You be the judge and see if it connects you with safety practices in a meaningful way that remains with you long after regular safety training lingers. That ability to linger, to remain and live on is something only a good story has the power to do. Please take a moment, this moment to engage in your own Patrick’s Pause.  Who knows?  You probably have more in common with a submarine officer you never met and about 3,000 other people as well than you ever thought before. You might just find yourself smiling a bit more today as you go to work safely and then return home to those you love and have as a friend as you go home all by having taken a Patrick’s Pause earlier that day.

Remember too, always, keep your head on a swivel for you, your shipmates, and your colleagues.