Did 9/11 change your life?

[Martinjmpr]

Just curious here about the effects of 9/11 on people's lives. I don't mean the things we all have to deal with - TSA, terror warnings, increased security at public events, etc, but things that affected or changed the course of YOUR life directly.

I was in my 2nd year of law school at the University of Wyoming. I remember we had a Civil Procedure class that morning and of course the attacks were all anyone was talking about. The professor (a renowned civil rights lawyer named Joel Selig) asked the class if we wanted to have a regular class or not and said that although he would prefer to have class, he would respect the wishes of the students. Ultimately, all classes were cancelled at the law school for that day (and probably for the entire university although I'm not sure about that.)

I was 39 and had served just over 10 years of active duty with the Army, I got out in 1996 to go back to college, and had already been mobilized once out of the Army Reserve to deploy to the Former Yugoslavia in 1997 - 98. In 2001 I was in the Colorado National Guard's 5th Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group out at Watkins Armory, serving as the detachment sergeant for the Military Intelligence detachment.

Our unit didn't actually get called up to active duty until almost a year later in the Summer of 2002, so I was able to finish my 2nd year of law school. Due to some paperwork SNAFUs I didn't end up deploying until January of 2003 to Afghanistan. I spent most of my time at Bagram AF (Camp Vance, which was the CJSOTF sub-camp) and didn't see any "action" although it wasn't unusual to hear shooting off in the distance (typically that was one group of Afghanis fighting another group - we called it "green-on-green" fighting.) I spent my last couple of weeks at the KMTC (Kabul Military Training Center) and flew out of what is now Hamid Karzai airport (at the time it was just called Kabul International Airport.)

By June I was back home and planning on resuming my studies, even though my class, the 2003 graduating class, had just graduated.

I transferred from the Colorado National Guard to the Wyoming National Guard (115th Field Artillery brigade) and did one more semester of law school.

Then in December, 2003 my Wyoming guard unit was mobilized for Operation Iraqi Freedom and we deployed in January of 2004 to Kuwait. We spent almost all of 2004 in Kuwait, didn't leave until December 11th. Most of the people in my unit took a "mid tour" leave but I didn't want to, so I spent my whole ~ 11 months in Kuwait.

2004 was basically the year that Iraq "blew up" so while we didn't have any combat in Kuwait, there was a lot going on next door in Iraq. I was all over Kuwait from Camp Arifjan in the South to Camp Doha outside Kuwait City, back to Arifjan, out to a small satellite camp called Truckville, then up to Camp Buehring (formerly Camp Udairi near the Iraq border) and finally back to Arifjan.

We demobilized just before Christmas of 2004 and in January 2005 I went back to school for my last semester, graduating with the 2005 class. I can honestly say that I can't name a single person from my graduating class - I just wasn't in it long enough.

The Kuwait deployment wasn't much fun but there were a couple of good things that came out of it. I ended up getting a promotion I'd likely never have gotten if I'd not deployed. And since I didn't spend my money on stupid stuff, I ended up with a nice nest egg to live on.

In March of 2005 I submitted my retirement papers to the National Guard as I had, at this point, over 20 years of creditable service. I retired at the end of 2005.

Anyway, it's unquestionable that 9/11 changed the trajectory of my life. It would have been much different if I hadn't been mobilized and gone overseas twice in 2003 - 2004.

[Bailey Guns]

Not for me directly. But my youngest son went into the Air Force in 2003 and became a JTAC. He did 7 tours between Iraq and Afghanistan. He has just over a year and a half to retirement now. Seems like just last summer I was watching him graduate from Basic Training in San Antonio and now he's an E7 in Alaska. So his chosen life direction was directly impacted by 9/11 and, in turn, that has had a pretty profound effect on my life.

[FoxtArt]

I was on track to become a pilot and had logged a reasonable amount of hours for being in high school. At the time, an ATP was averaging $144,000/year IIRC, there were several motivations, travel was a big one.

Among other drastic changes, it completely hollowed out the industry where only the most seasoned of pilots even had a job at all, and there was no entry anymore as a commercial pilot for a long time after that. I never flew again.

[Great-Kazoo]

yes, to a point.

[clodhopper]

I would argue that it has made changes in everyone's life, some more (see OP) than others. But since it is impossible to go back in time and re-live the last 20 years for comparison, it is exceedingly hard to quantify. There have been so many changes in life, government and more that occurred over long time periods and have become simply accepted by us that we dont even think about the impact or what life might be like if something like 9/11 hadnt occurred.

[eddiememphis]

Nope

Not directly

[Irving]

Nope

Not directly

Same here. It should have though. I should have enlisted. Maybe. I don't know.

[fitterjohn]

Interesting question. My boss had actually just sent an email to everyone in my branch talking about this and sharing his experience of that day. This is part of mine:
That is a day I will never forget, I think that event very much changed the way I view the world today and think of it often. I was in the passenger seat of my dads work van at the stop sign of troutman and beaver creek going to Rocky Mountain high to be dropped off For about my 3rd week of being a high school at 15. My dad was speechless and I couldn?t comprehend the damage over the radio, I was imagining a small Cessna single prop that accidentally hit a building( I had no idea what the trade towers were). Got dropped off at school and went to sit in class and the tv was on to much horror. The bell rang and my teacher said there will be no class today this is more important and didn?t say another word for almost 20 mins then turned around and just looked out at us and simply said ?some of you are going to war?. Over the next few years many many people I knew went to fight and some spent the next 10 years only knowing high school and war. I will never forget the news not taking about politics just talking about being Americans and everyone coming together. I think that was one of the first times I ever truly felt American pride and understood it.

I think that event will forever be ingrained in my memory and every day is a reminder to never take a day for granted, that we are not guaranteed a tomorrow.

So I guess I would say yes it did directly change my life. Like Irving said maybe I should have enlisted maybe not, I guess life puts you where you need to be

[Eric P]

Not really other than a modified air travel screening.

[rondog]

Never really thought about it, but now that you mention it - yeah, it did actually! Before 9/11, my wife was a corporate travel agent. That job went away almost immediately. Not long after, a friend of hers helped her get hired on at Kaiser Permanente as a union employee, and that job has given us incredible health benefits from day one. $5 prescriptions? $10 office visits? $50 co-pay for major surgeries? Yes please!