My Memory of 9-11

I went to work early on that Tuesday morning. I had breakfast with a subordinate project officer to discuss year end funding requests and to make sure he clearly understood the distribution guidance.

After breakfast, I went to my office just before 8:30. The television was on in my office and my secretary had a briefing deck for me review for a meeting scheduled for 10:00. Sitting on my desk was a folder containing TDY orders and an airline ticket.

It was what I had came to call the cannonball run; a 5:10 am early bird flight to Reagan in Washington and a 4:30 pm return flight. This was a fairly normal bit of pain that I endured routinely in those days. I could easily have spent the night prior in DC and avoided such a grueling day but I was a single dad and this was just part of that.

I was scheduled for a meeting with Lt. General Timothy Maude at 09:00 on the 12th in his office in the Pentagon.

My back was to my television when the first plane hit. The sound was turned down and I didn’t see the immediate news alert. My secretary did and rushed into my office to alert me.

Within minutes, the networks were all over the story.

I remember reminding the growing number of people coming into my office that a B25 bomber had accidentally flown into the Empire State Building back in 1945.

Of course that was in heavy fog and what I was watching on TV was a clear fall day. My gut said something was very wrong. About 15 minutes later, something very wrong was confirmed.

As the rest of the morning unfolded with the crash of flight 93 and the strike on the Pentagon, the tension in the Headquarters was immeasurable.

I left work around noon and I remember driving home and thinking that the world just changed.

Just after 3:00pm I looked down the street and saw my son and several of his friends running down the street toward my house. Needless to say, they had been watching the events on TV all day and were in a state of near shock.

About 3:30 my boss called to tell me to cancel my trip to Washington the next day. I told him I was not surprised and would look into rescheduling later in the month. He told me there would be no meeting with LTG Maude.

LTG Maude was killed in his office when the Pentagon was struck.

The world did change that day. Of the half dozen high school freshmen that ran to my house that afternoon, three eventually joined the Army and two joined the Marines. Two of them have been wounded and LCpl Thomas Echols was killed in Falluja.

Category: Politics