Where were you during 9/11? What has changed in 20 years?

It was a perfect Tuesday morning...

That’s when they attacked. Yes, I’m talking about September 11, 2001.
September 11th happened just two weeks after I called it quits from 10 years as
an infantryman. I first served on active duty and then the Army National Guard
where I finished as an infantry squad leader.

 Paul and I met in the mid-nineties when he volunteered from another
battalion to join my company for our deployment to Bosnia. Within minutes Paul
and I became inseparable. He, a former Marine infantryman, the same age, and
similar mindset; people often mistook us for each other although we looked
nothing alike. Halfway through our deployment the platoon sergeant, a veteran
Ranger from Operation Urgent Fury, had to separate us due to the shenanigans we
often got ourselves into. We were the guys he loved to hate. Always on point
and ready for action, but when boredom set in, we were busy getting into
trouble. As an example, I had Ron Jon Surf Shop from Cocoa Beach Florida send
me hundreds of stickers. Soon, every Yugo in Srpski Brod Bosnia had a sticker
on the back bumper. Paul stayed in first platoon and I went over to the quick
reaction force (QRF). Even then, they couldn't keep us apart.

 On December 15th of that year, a few Serbs hijacked a NATO tanker
truck and held two men hostage. The bell sounded so we donned our battle rattle
and took off in a sprint to surround the building. It was on the intra-squad
radio that I said “keep your head down around Zucker”, his squad leader (my
former) who didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. That line came from
one of our favorite movies, Heartbreak Ridge starring Clint Eastwood. Zucker
had given me my first and only counseling statement of my career. You see, some
of us learned from the Rangers’ experience in Somalia in 1993; who went out on
a daytime raid leaving their night vision behind, yet found themselves in an 18
hour firefight that took the lives of 18 special operations soldiers. Paul and
I didn't need another Somalia to learn from their mistake and carried our night
vision goggles (NVGs) in our butt-pack 24/7. Fearing that we would lose or
damage them, Zucker demanded that we keep them in the padded cases for
accountability and to ensure nothing happened to them, but we didn’t listen. It
was the night of December 15th that our insubordination paid off. Out of his
entire squad and the QRF response element, Paul and I were the only two with
NVGs.

 After Bosnia, in 1998, Paul moved up to Northern Virginia where we
shared a house, attended college together and I got him a job with me where we
worked as contractors for the US Government. It was a cool gig that was both
flexible and paid well. Not to mention we learned some trade-craft that you
just can’t acquire anywhere else. It was Sunday, September 9th, 2001, a
gorgeous afternoon when Paul and I were headed back home to Virginia from
Maryland where we had spent the weekend camping. I had been out of the Guard
for just two weeks and he still had some time left on his enlistment, but he
was planning on getting out, too. We were chatting about how complacent our
country had gotten as far as its security and the global threat of terrorism.
We agreed that it was just a matter of time before something happened on
American soil and one of us; neither of us remember who, said “what this country
needs is a wake-up call, something to happen in the United States, before
anyone really gets it.”

 Tuesday morning, Paul and I were just starting a training evolution
with a couple of surveillance teams where some "new hires" for the
organization we worked for were about to get their final skills evaluation at
the end of their 11 week hostile environment trade-craft course before heading
overseas to their assignments. During our morning briefing we learned that a
plane had hit one of the Twin Towers in New York. I don’t recall if we had
found out about a plane hitting the second tower before leaving, but as we
exited the building to the top level of a parking garage in Arlington Virginia
at around 9:30 am a colleague said “damn, that plane is pretty low”, even
though it was common to see low flying aircraft in the area due to our
proximity to Reagan National and Dulles. Although we were close, we didn't know
to stick around to see the plane hit the Pentagon, not that we could have seen
it from where we stood anyway. A few minutes later, in Rosslyn Virginia, we
noticed a sea of people evacuating high rise buildings and suddenly, we notice
the plume of smoke coming from the Pentagon, less than a mile from where we sat
in our car, adjacent to the Iwo Jima Memorial. A call came over our radios to
RTB, return to base, and turn in our equipment. We did so, and within minutes
found ourselves stuck in traffic on I-66 trying to head west towards Fairfax.

 Paul and I were in separate vehicles and couldn't reach each other by
cell phone, but we were both thinking the same thing. We met back at the house,
collected our gear and loaded our weapons. At that point, we didn't know what
exactly was happening, but we knew America was under attack and we just saw the
Pentagon on fire with our own eyes. We staged our gear in our trucks and stood
by the TV as everything unfolded. We remained awake and glued to the TV for the
next few days as we weren't allowed to return to work. We were both finishing
up an EMT course (for fun) and had the final test that Thursday, but other than
that, we were just waiting around. He got called from his unit and was placed
on active duty to augment security at a local military base for a few months. I
had recently been hired by the World Bank to work on the President’s protection
detail and had an October 1st start date. That was my reason for leaving the
Guard, because I would be traveling extensively with the new job and the Guard
wasn't excited about me missing drills, otherwise I would have stayed.

By early 2002 Paul had left the Guard and I was working for the Bank. We
hated not being a part of the war effort so we decided to join the Navy as
corpsman and try out for the Special Boat Teams. We swore in and I quit my job.
We were to leave June of 2002. Both of us lost rank and had to go in as E-3s,
but there was a $30,000 bonus involved so we weren’t too torn up about it. Two
weeks before we were to ship out we got a call from the recruiter saying the
bonus wasn't guaranteed, nor was SWCC School, the school boat team guys have to
attend before getting picked up by a team. I called the Bank and they were
willing to take me back. Paul took the risk and went anyway. Turned out he got
the bonus and the school, but I don’t regret my decision. I only regret not
being there for Paul. I spent the next five years living one dream while Paul
lived another. I visited more than 50 countries, got deputized by the Marshal
Service, flew everywhere in first class, and carried an issued Sig Sauer P229
and a badge everywhere I went, even on commercial flights. Something was
missing though; I missed wearing a uniform. I talked to a friend from the Army
who had joined the Air National Guard and explained that they were much more
flexible than the Army Guard as far as missing drill weekends. A week later I
was in as an Air Crew Life Support technician. Not a tip of the spear job, but
I got to play with survival equipment and managed to get myself a slot in SERE
school. After five years of living the dream, I moved home where my wife and I
started a family. I became a police officer and joined the Air National Guard a
couple of hours away, but this time as Security Forces, the Air Force’s version
of military police.

 Today, three days before the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks,
I found myself leading roll call for the day shift with the men and women,
Airmen and contract security, who protect the base. I reflected on that Tuesday
morning in 2001 and how I remember that it was a perfect Tuesday. No one
suspected a thing; we were just living life and enjoying our freedoms when a
group of terrorists caught us off guard. I reminded the team that today is no
different than September 11, 2001, in that today, or any day, it can happen.
Whether it be a gun wielding drug dealer, or an Islamic extremist who decided
to move to our rather insignificant city and pay back the infidels who bombed
his homeland by driving his car through the gate of our small National Guard
base, it’s not a matter of “if”, but “when”.

 Twelve years later Paul and I are E-7s, he a Chief and I a Master
Sergeant; I've been to Afghanistan and while he has been all over the world in
his Navy career, he is just now headed to the fight in Afghanistan for the
first time in a few months. This goes to show, that no matter your career
field, duty station, or life choices, you truly never know where life will take
you, or when. It is our duty, regardless of our status, to maintain a high
level of vigilance and fight the natural urge to become complacent because “nothing
ever happens here”.

I continue to stress this mantra because all too often I hear my fellow
Defenders complain about our duties of simply standing post. Sometimes there is
an identity crisis as to whether we are “cops” or “grunts”. Are we law enforcement
or air base defenders? Should we train for deployments to war zones or prepare
ourselves to write tickets on base? The fact is, we do both, and we should be
proficient in both, to an extent. Realistically, I think it’s too difficult for
part-time Defenders to master any one skill, but the one thing we must maintain
is our sense of duty and our ability to remain flexible enough, and passionate
enough, to learn all we can about our responsibilities as Security Forces
Airmen. Regardless of our label, cops or grunts, at the end of the day we are
the Defenders of the Force. We protect people, assets, and resources. Whether
on patrol at home station or patrolling outside the wire in a war zone, our
mission is the same, to remain vigilant and keep our Air Force protected from
those who wish to do us harm.

 September 11th was just another Tuesday in 2001, or so we thought.
Which day will have us waking up to the next attack? Will it be tomorrow or two
years from now? For any American who has served in uniform, there hasn't been a
period of 10 years that the United States hasn't been involved in combat in
centuries. Spanning over anyone’s military experience over the past 40 years,
there have been a number of combat actions since I've been alive or serving in
uniform: Vietnam up to 1975, Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, Iraq in 1991,
Somalia in 1993, and 12 years of war since 2001. If you enlist and think you’ll
simply get a bonus and some college money, you may want to reconsider. There
will likely be another “perfect Tuesday morning” in your lifetime.

Note:
“Paul” and “Zucker” are pseudonyms.

I wasn't in yet, but that horrible day started me on the path to join. Here is an email that I sent to my wife on 9/11/2009 while deployed in Afghanistan:

9/11/2009
 
 
    September 11th, 2001. . . The most infamous date of our generation. The one day that every single one of us can remember with exactitude where we were, with whom, and what we were doing when we got the news. I was at my old apartment on Baseline Rd when my brother called me and told me to turn on the news. "What channel?" I asked. "Any channel," he said, "it doesn't matter." I remember tuning in just in time to watch the second tower get blown to pieces. I couldn't cry like I did that day at my father's funeral. Ain't that some shit. . . It still took me five years, but I knew that day that I would sign up sooner or later.
 
    A lot of good came out of such destruction that day, though. I could actually thank Bin Laden, believe or not. You see, every time it seems that our country is going down the tubes, there's always some douchebag like him that has a genius idea of administering the 'coup de grace' to our society and, as painful and horrific as the immediate impact might be, all they achieve in the long run is a stronger and prouder and more united America. Our parents know what I'm talking about: they had Kennedy. And their folks had Pearl Harbor, and so on and so forth. 3000 people might have died needlessly, but most definitely not in vain.
 
    Those are the places my thoughts went this morning when I was suddenly awakened by out-going mortar rounds from our FOB seeking some early-rising taliban in the nearby mountains. Just another day in paradise, I guess. . ..