9/11

Never Forget

Two Words

Seems Pretty Simple

But today I think many have forgotten, not just what what was taken from us, that should be enough to Never Forget, but the bigger picture. Facebook is smeared with #neverforget. This is not a one day thing to #neverforget.

14 years ago I was at the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston AL. The cover of our course book had the World Trade Center in crosshairs. It was a target, we knew it was a target, it had been attacked before. The first day of class, Monday was fairly straight forward with background on WMD's and terrorism. FBI guys were teaching most of that. They gave the normal stuff about terrorism and what the goal was, what we had heard many times before - Fear, it was all about fear.

Tuesday started normal, we were finally told about WTC and the Pentagon around 1200 a good 4 hours into the day. The rest of the day, hell the rest of the week was worthless, nothing we were learning seemed to matter anymore. That's right the curriculum we had in front of us just became outdated.

Wednesday one of the FBI guys walked in and said "Remember what we said on Monday about terrorism being about fear?" "Fuck That! They want to kill as many of us as possible." That is what changed, that is why not much mattered anymore. We had to change our mentality about our enemy, we had to change our idea of what is prepared, we had to take the fight to them, so this shit never happens again on our soil.

Many have forgotten so much, what we learned that day, what led up to the events of that day, what we learned after that day. We have a short term memory problem anymore. People forget the pain of that day. We need to remember to lesson of history so we do not repeat them, and September 11, 2001 was one of the biggest lessons we will ever learn.

Never Forget

I was at work (a veterinarian clinic), and had been working for about an hour. My husband called me at work, told me there had been a plane that hit the WTC and to turn on the news. I'd never heard the tone in his voice before, and it worried me. The television and phone were located in the room where the surgery takes place. I told the office manager to turn on the TV, and they did...just in time to watch the second plane hit. I told my husband to come home right away- RIGHT AWAY, and I started making frantic phone calls. Several of our friends were supposed to be at he Pentagon, but they were all out of the building that day. Thank god.

I remember how my perspective shifted that day. My job was such an insignificant thing, in the scheme of things. A time-wasting makework thing. I was shocked at how stunned I was. It took a while for the implications of what had happened to sink in. Living as close as we were to BWI a the time, the silence was eerie. I think the whole city flinched when we finally heard a plane again. We had to fly up to Boston a week later for a family emergency; all of the passengers were anxiously silent, and the sky marshal was very grim and visible.

I haven't forgotten- hell, it was practically yesterday. I certainly haven't forgiven, either.

Great video davsel-made my allergies act up.[Salute]

Never forget that we were attacked and are continually at war with an ideology that seeks our demise.
[Salute]

On my way to work, got to work saw the second plane hit. Got a phone call and was activated back on duty. Spent 2 weeks at Ground Zero in search and rescue for the first few hrs afterwards then the rest of the time just helping out going through the aftermath.
Day I will never forget.
RIP to all my freinds I have lost that day.[Salute]

I was on my way home from work when the first plane hit and watched the second hit on TV when I got home. Immediately started packing my ruck and duffel bag. We were only called up for a couple of days then sent home. Kept waiting for the phone call that never came until May 2003 when we were sent to, of all places, Pueblo to guard highly secure chemical weapons. I was actually disappointed.

Our kids had a program in elementary school today, after that was done the Principal took the mic, quieted down the crowd and spoke to the kids about what happened on 9/11.

He didn't get into the religious side but he let them know that our country was attacked by terrorists and a lot of innocent people lost their lives and we should never forget them. He then told the kids that they should be thankful for our men and women in the military, law enforcement, fire, EMTs, etc. and invited all the parents who currently or have ever been in those fields to come forward. Then we all headed outside to raise the flag and lower to half mast for a moment of silence for the fallen.

Pretty cool for a grade school if you ask me.

I was on active duty at Fort Riley and serving as Detachment Commander for our training deployment to NTC (Fort Irwin), scheduled to begin on September 13, 2001. I skipped PT and came into work in duty uniform to catch up on paper work in my motor pool office. My NCO came running up the stairs yelling “Sir!, Sir!, Turn on the radio!”. I responded with a grumpy “Why?”, and he said a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. We found a news station on the radio and tried to get information from the internet on cnn.com, yahoo.com, etc, but everything quickly bogged down. I called my girlfriend (now wife) so she could watch on TV at home and my parents back in Colorado. I was on the phone with my girlfriend when she said “I think it just collapsed”. In the orderly room, the 50,000 KIA estimate was discussed, but then the news about the Pentagon hit and we got punched in the gut again.


My unit quickly went on a war footing, which now seems silly, but did not on that day- kicking out all civilian contractors from the motor pool area, making FedEx dump shipments outside the gate, stringing concertina wire around the Battalion HQ, mandatory ID check as all entrances, drawing small arms. One thing I distinctly remember was how sharp and crisp the salutes were that afternoon, as all the soldiers suddenly realized this was “real” now. I gassed-up on post that evening to avoid the cluster at the civilian stations, and by the time I left, there was an M1A1 sitting at the gate with a belt loaded M2 and 120 mm ammo ready to go, with the sector of fire being downtown Ogden, KS. My girlfriend and I did manage to tear away from the news and take our dog to the off-leash park nearby- it was strange to not see any contrails in the sunset.


My unit did manage to deploy on the 14^th, flying out of Forbes Field in Topeka on a chartered Northwest Airlines 747. I sat next to our Battalion XO on the flight, and the stewardesses were EXTREMELY friendly. I figured we were about the only civilian plane in the sky, which was interesting to contemplate if there were still sleeper cells armed with MANPADS still waiting to strike. Some folks asked me later if I was scared about our flight being hijacked- I laughed, stating a sarcastic “not really” when I was sharing the flight with 300+ active duty Army officers, NCOs and soldiers. Because of the deployment, it was difficult to follow news on the initial Special Ops and air strike campaigns, but I can say that the intensity of our training was stepped-up a notch or two. One challenge we had was rumor control from back home, specifically since we were already packed-up, that the brigade (hardly the tip of the spear) would deploy direct to Afghanistan from NTC.