Thoughts/memories of 9/11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg&feature=player_embedded

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/thbrown.htm

the director stopped the scale in the middle of the warmup and turned on the TV…it was pretty harrowing to watch as a kid. My friends and I spent the rest of the day plotting to kill Bin Laden.

http://youtu.be/HzpyheliUcE

September 11th, 2001 is a day that I will vividly remember for the rest of my life. We’ve all watched shows on the History channel about past wars and listened to veterans say things like that well into their 80’s and 90’s. It’s crazy, but I could probably tell you more mundane details about that day than any other day I’ve lived.

I was in the United States Marine Corps at the time and that morning I had woke up at 5:30am to get ready for another day. We didn’t have PT (physical training) scheduled that morning because most of the platoon was in a Marine Corps martial combat training regimen for the week, basically MMA training. It was easy enough to get on base early with little to no traffic and minimal security checks at the time.

There were about four or five of us at the shop that morning and it was nice to have a little quiet time to get stuff done. In the break room one of the guys was listening to Lex and Terry on the radio while polishing his boots and I was busy analyzing some data for an upcoming "event". My buddy came flying into the room screaming about a plane hitting the WTC tower and that a lot of people were probably going to die. I told him to stop being ridiculous, that there’s no way a passenger jet would fly into the WTC towers, that they wouldn’t let them fly that close to downtown. I honestly thought that it was some prank that the radio show was pulling. Turns out I was wrong.

By the time I walked in, the second plane had hit. I called my wife at home and told her that I might not be available all day. She asked what was wrong and then the phone cut off. The base had closed all outside lines. The rest of my day was spent gathering as much intel as I could on NYC and the places involved in the upcoming "event". We pulled in all satellite imagery and data, and starting making all kinds of maps for the area, LOS (line of sight) maps for communications and military personnel, route maps for emergency military relief and evacuation, etc. There was no indication of who was responsible that day, so we focused on a few different places in the Middle East. Eventually, after all the gates had been secured and all non-military personnel was off the base, the lock-down was lifted and I was able to call my wife and let her know everything was ok with me.

When I got home around 9pm that night, I found that my wife had been recording her soaps on the VCR and that all the news had broke in. We watched everything together again. We held each other for a very long time and cried. I worked with guys from NYC who had family in the towers. I’m thankful that I didn’t have to endure the personal loss that so many did. It was then, and still is today, one of the most emotional events in my life. It gets to me anytime this topic comes up. It still makes me angry and sad and I still cry.

And it didn’t end there. Many more have gone afterwards and given their lives in pursuit of the waste of life that caused 9/11. Some will say that it isn’t called for, but I promise you if you could ask each and every one of them that they would say they would do it all again and gladly do it. The military isn’t glorious and it surely won’t make you rich from a material standpoint, but it is absolutely full of selfless individuals who gladly serve to ensure the freedom of the whole, not the individual. While I wouldn’t wish anyone to go through something like 9/11, I’m completely proud to have served during that time period and just hope that some small part of intelligence analysis I did that day helped in the time afterwards.

Semper Fi!