September 11th, 2001 - Ft. Meade, MD

The day started with an argument between me and my wife. We had only been married a little over a year. We were both in the Air Force and worked in the same office, same days, same hours, etc. I have no idea what the argument was about any more.

On our way in to work that morning we were listening to the local country radio station and I will never forget the song that was playing as we pulled onto  base for what would turn out to be the longest day of my life. The song was ‘A Great Day To Be Alive‘ by Travis Tritt.

The song was fitting. My wife and I were young. We did not have any children at the time. We were making more money than we knew what to do with. And we loved our job and new life in the Air Force.

The morning was a beautiful, clear, warm early September day on the east coast. We normally worked the mid shift, midnight until 0800, but this week we had to work the day shift, 0800-1600 because we had been tasked with doing bay orderly. Bay orderly is nothing more than a fancy name for a janitor. All the new airman get tasked with the job. It’s a rite of passage of sorts.

There was much for me to do that morning so I decided to go hang out with my friends in our office. Our office was basically nothing more than a closed off section in the back of what used to be a vehicle maintenance garage. We were sitting around joking and picking on each other as we always did when one of our co-workers came down into the office.

He passingly mentioned that a plane had crashed into one of the world trade center towers. No one paid much attention to him. See, we worked at the 94th Intelligence Squadron. Our profession was as Cryptologic Linguists. We were accustomed to being the first to know about breaking world events. A plane crash was so minor to us that it barely even sparked any interest.

After a couple of minutes of joking about what a terrible pilot you must be to not notice a giant skyscraper in front of you we went back to talking, joking and picking on each other.

After what seemed like only a few minutes our co-worker came back into our office and said ANOTHER plane had crashed into one of the world trade center towers. The first words out my mouth were, “What the fuck? Is it foggy in New York or something?”. This time around everyone paid attention. There was sudden silence in the air. We were all looking at each other. In a room full of some of the smartest people you will ever meet it didn’t take long for us to figure out what was going on.

A side note real quick: The one thing that always struck me as amazing about the people I worked with in my career field was how quickly and completely you could go from acting like over caffeinated twelve year olds to being the most intense and professional adult around.

At this point our commander, a Lt. Col. whose name I can not recall called everyone into one of the conference rooms. The conference room was made to seat about 30 persons. At this moment we had well over 100 persons crowded into this tiny, smelly, unthinkably hot room.

We all stood there. Silent. Stoic. Intense. Angry. Sweating. We knew what was going on. Our commander knew we knew. There was no need to explain anything. He quickly gave us a briefing as to what our duties and tasks were going to be.

At this point in the story I am going to have to leave out a lot of details unfortunately. It’s one of the drawbacks about working a classified mission.

Interesting Memories of September 11th

I was outside doing a perimeter security detail when I saw the first plane. It was an AWACS. Followed soon there after by two F-15’s, I believe, more than likely from Langley AFB conducting combat air patrols over the D.C. area. When it was not my turn to do the security rounds I would lay on the ground near our tent and watch the planes overhead.

At some point during the day, after the FAA had grounded all air planes within United States air space, we heard a sound. We had heard this sound hundreds of times before. This time, however, we stood there in disbelief. We all looked at each with the same thought in our eyes, “No fucking way this is happening.” What we heard was the sound of an air plane.

We immediately jumped up and began scanning the sky and horizon trying desperately to see the source of the sound we were all too familiar with. We finally saw the plane emerge from the tree tops on the horizon. It was flying low. We stood there waiting, watching, wondering. Wondering if this plane was going to do what we though it was going to do. Crash into the NSA building across the street.

We were relieved when the plane kept climbing. The pilot had no intention of crashing into the NSA. It was taking off. Heading where we had no idea. Why was it allowed to fly? We had no idea either. The day was so hectic though that it was almost instantly put out of our mind and we went back to doing what we were assigned.

It wouldn’t be until nearly six years later that I learned who was on that plane and why it was allowed to take off.

Our day finally ended around two in the morning. Nearly 20 hours after it had begun. Hungry, exhausted to the core and yet still insanely fueled by adrenaline my wife and I began to make our way home. We stopped at a little grocery store near our apartment to pick up a couple of t.v. dinners to eat. We were still in our uniform when we entered. We were greeted with warm looks and friendly ever so slight touches that people make when they want to comfort you but dont konw how.

We got home and gave our dogs great big hugs. We heated up our food and ate it in about five seconds. We took a quick shower and afterwards went into our bedroom to go to sleep. I turned on the television and for the first time all day I finally had a chance to watch all the video that had been taken through out the day.

I turned the television off after about 15 minutes and we tried to get some sleep, knowing that in four hours we had to get up and go back to work to continue with our duties and work another 18-20 hours.

My Thoughts Seven Years Later

It’s been seven years since that day. Seven years of working intelligence. Seven years of watching our country, our society, our politics, our military, our reputation and our economy change. The things I learned about that day lead in no small part to my eventually seeking therapy and medication. The things I learned about that day lead directly to my decision to apply for early separation from the Air Force. The things I learned about that day lead directly to me deciding that I never again want to have any thing to do with the intelligence community. The things I learned about that day lead directly to my decision to never again watch televison news, read newspapers, read news related magazine or listen to news radio.

In conclusion I would just like to lay out my opinion about what happened on September 11th, 2001.

• Al-Qaeda did not plan, finance and execute the attacks.
• The world trade center towers 1, 2 and 7 did not collapse due to structural failure.
• Flight 93 was in fact shot down by fighters scrambled from Langely AFB.
• A plane did not crash into the pentagon

In no way do my beliefs about what transpired that day take away from the courage and bravery shown by the rescue workers, fireman and police that morning. The 3,000 plus persons who died that day and the hundreds more who have died since from health related issues will never be forgotten.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites