...seven years ago?
I was making my 10 minute commute when I turned the radio on in the car and there was excited jabbering about how an airplane had flown into the World Trade Center. I figured they meant a small airplane or perhaps a news helicopter.
I walked into my company's brand new office spaces downtown and when I turned the corner down the corridor where my office was located there was a TV on the floor, showing the first tower burning, and it seemed pretty clear that it had to have been something larger.
I got to my office, fired up my computer, and opened a radio feed. The second tower had been hit. My first thought was - this is no accident. This is an attack.
I opened up CNN's website, and there was a picture of the Pentagon. My blood ran cold. I had been in exactly that part of the Pentagon the Friday before. Exactly that part. As in, I'd been briefing LTG Maude in the very same conference room he just (though I didn't know it at the time) died in. And because I'd been working a project for the Army G1, I knew several people in that part of the building. In the event, I knew 13 who never went home that day.
My last job on active duty had been as the Plans, Operations and Training Officer for the 5th Army WMD Response Task Force - West. Our job was to coordinate the DoD support to a large-scale attack (usually envisioned as being by a WMD of some variety) against the United States west of the MIssissippi. 1st Army had a similar group who would be forming the core of the response to this attack.
I had spent two years working with FEMA, JFCOM, FORSCOM, the FBI, Secret Service, HHS, State and local governments, law enforcement and other First Responders, as well as NGOs like the Red Cross in training and planning for, well, exactly this. I had contributed to the most recent update of the DoD annex of the Federal Response Plan.
But I was retired.
I picked up the phone, called my branch representative, and told them I was available right now if they needed someone with some experience in WMD and disaster response. Hedging my bets, I called DOMS, the Director of Miltary Support, and told them, too - figuring if someone was going to generate a requirement, it would be them.
Then I went back to work. I'd done what I could. They never did call back. Clearly, they didn't need to. They did a fine job.
In that strange way that lives connect, paths cross, and fate intervenes, the casualty that brought forth for me the greatest reaction was the last one I found out about. LTC(r) Karl Teepe. I first met Karl when he was a Captain working as an ROTC instructor for my father, right before the Auld Soldier retired. He then became one of my instructors. Karl went on in his Army career, retired, and took a job as a budget analyst for the DIA at the Pentagon.
So, today, the Armorer remembers Karl Teepe.
I was making my 10 minute commute when I turned the radio on in the car and there was excited jabbering about how an airplane had flown into the World Trade Center. I figured they meant a small airplane or perhaps a news helicopter.
I walked into my company's brand new office spaces downtown and when I turned the corner down the corridor where my office was located there was a TV on the floor, showing the first tower burning, and it seemed pretty clear that it had to have been something larger.
I got to my office, fired up my computer, and opened a radio feed. The second tower had been hit. My first thought was - this is no accident. This is an attack.
I opened up CNN's website, and there was a picture of the Pentagon. My blood ran cold. I had been in exactly that part of the Pentagon the Friday before. Exactly that part. As in, I'd been briefing LTG Maude in the very same conference room he just (though I didn't know it at the time) died in. And because I'd been working a project for the Army G1, I knew several people in that part of the building. In the event, I knew 13 who never went home that day.
My last job on active duty had been as the Plans, Operations and Training Officer for the 5th Army WMD Response Task Force - West. Our job was to coordinate the DoD support to a large-scale attack (usually envisioned as being by a WMD of some variety) against the United States west of the MIssissippi. 1st Army had a similar group who would be forming the core of the response to this attack.
I had spent two years working with FEMA, JFCOM, FORSCOM, the FBI, Secret Service, HHS, State and local governments, law enforcement and other First Responders, as well as NGOs like the Red Cross in training and planning for, well, exactly this. I had contributed to the most recent update of the DoD annex of the Federal Response Plan.
But I was retired.
I picked up the phone, called my branch representative, and told them I was available right now if they needed someone with some experience in WMD and disaster response. Hedging my bets, I called DOMS, the Director of Miltary Support, and told them, too - figuring if someone was going to generate a requirement, it would be them.
Then I went back to work. I'd done what I could. They never did call back. Clearly, they didn't need to. They did a fine job.
In that strange way that lives connect, paths cross, and fate intervenes, the casualty that brought forth for me the greatest reaction was the last one I found out about. LTC(r) Karl Teepe. I first met Karl when he was a Captain working as an ROTC instructor for my father, right before the Auld Soldier retired. He then became one of my instructors. Karl went on in his Army career, retired, and took a job as a budget analyst for the DIA at the Pentagon.
So, today, the Armorer remembers Karl Teepe.
looking south from the 24th floor, we had a perfect line of sight.
after seeing the smoking hole in the tower from the 1st one, i called the Reserve Center.
after i watched the second plane go in, i called the Reserve Center again and told them to post an armed guard.
we ran the corporate version of "sub-unit command post" operations from there. had personnel accountability on all but three employees w/i about an hour. those were the three my company lost in NY that day.
pager went off. i went home and got my bug out bag, drove out to the Reserve Center.
five days later i went home again.
I turned to Jennifer, and said, "Wow.. and on 9-11 too. Get it? Emergency- 9-11. Boy, I sure hope it really WAS on accident, and not on purpose. OK, gotta run. "
By the time I got to my car in her driveway... the 2nd plane hit, and I knew that my "joke" about it being 9-11 and hoping that it wasn't on purpose, wasn't so funny anymore.
I continued to my appointment an the University of Cincinnati's Ethnic Diversity Center. Ironic, eh? We watched in horror and tears as the towers fell, one by one, on their big screen tv, and listened, crying, as the tell-tale sirens of fallen firefighters started to wail.
All I wanted to do was grab my kids and hold them tight, but I knew they would be to young to understand. I did go get Kevin, and I picked Thomas up immediately after school. The drive-line that day was much longer than usual, filled by other parents with the same idea and overwhelming need to gather up those they love the most.
I didn't cry that day. All I felt was a deep, cold anger. I was angry that the terrorists had made it necessary for me to watch people jump from the burning towers and know there was nothing I could do for them save hunt down those who had made it possible.
Then, on my way home, I saw someone had put out the flag. It was a "Spirit of '76" flag. When I got home I remembered seeing a little flag in the garage, the kind of thing you wave at parades. It was a 48 star flag. I put it on my mailbox. The little girl who lived across the street saw that flag and asked her mother why. A few days later, their yard was festooned with little flags, carefully stuck in the ground. She pestered her folks until they got a proper flag and bracket for the side of the house, and that flag flew whenever she could possibly find an excuse to do so. And she wasn't the only one. Remember how hard it was to find a flag back then?
I wonder if the jihadis ever considered *that* would be the consequence of their actions. They tried to destroy us -- and thousands and thousands of Americans woke up and realized they loved their country. Karma is a bitch.
*running away*
I was having a buissy day, the bosses were locked in their offices talking about something that seemed very important on the morning of that day. Around 1500 (GMT+1) an SMS came in about a plane that had flown in to the WTC in New York, i smsed back, joking about that blind sheik that had tried to blow it up talking someone into lending him a cessna, i looked up, I was standing under a picture of the building and started feeling uneasy.
Then the phonecalls started coming, and a crowded half hour ensued trying to find someone or something that could make sense of the info i was recieving from friends around the world.
After that half hour later I bursted into the office of the boss, who, after leaving a message that he was not to be disturbed what ever happened noone had seen fit to inform. I will never forget seeing their faces turn white as I briefed them on everything confirmed and everything as yet unconfirmed. The boss told me to keep him posted on all new info i recieved and started making making calls, Around 1900 (GMT+1) the situation was pretty much clear.
I sat down at my desk, cried, called my boss for the last time and went home.
As i walked to the station something came to me that had been nagging me all day, a week before "that day" the boss asked me to show a guy from headquarters a good time so me, a very pretty receptionist (now my ex-wife) and the second in comand at the company went out had a very good meal, a lot of fun and got seriously drunk. I called my boss, asked after the guy and found out he had an early apointment in the WTC "that day".
A week later it was confirmed that he was one of those killed.
Now in 2008 seven years after "that day" the emotions come back easy, the one that remains the strongest is, that i am still, and will forever be seriously pissed of.
9-11 changed my life, i left the corporate world and got into law-enforcement, I am now a LEO taking care of Rotterdam city-center , and i hope and pray that if "that day" comes for us we will be as professional and strong as our coleags in New York, London and madrid were when "that day" came for them.
With apologies for my english (its not my first language, more like my fifth, and the spell-check does'nt seem to work).
Evert Visser.
Heer Visser - I promise I won't grump about your english if you don't grump about my non-existant Dutch?
Seeing all of those faces, hearing the names, and reading their stories makes it just that much more tragic.
Your english may not be perfect, but your sentiment is. Thank you for remembering us. Not all remember, and some who do, don't understand why the grief still exists. There are some events in live that just never leave your memory, and hurt every time you think about it. 9/11 will always hurt, will always make me cry, will always make me angry, and will always make me proud of our response as a nation.