Patriot's Day, 2010 CONUS Edition

For the Sandbox Edition, read Bill's post two posts down.

At the Castle, the flags are at half-staff for the morning, then they will rise back to full.  SWWBO is being entrepreneurial selling yarn, wool balls, drop spindles w/roving, and peacock feathers at the Riverfest in downtown Leavenworth.  The Armorer will be feeding the Interior and Exterior Guard, the goats, rabbits, and loosing the birds to feed on some scratch and whatever bugs that have the bad judgement to appear.  Or worms.  Or frogs, or snakes, even.  The chickens are voracious omnivores.  Then he'll tootle over into Missouri to pick up a spring for the lawnmower, so we can reduce the jungle building in the Inner Bailey of Castle Argghhh!  I'll probably do some shooting.  In honor of the day, and for Beau.

Where was I nine 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 Military 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.

And for those of us in the wider military community, and those touched by that community - we are still counting the cost of that day.  Members of the Castle Argghhh! community of posters and commenters and just plain old readers have done their bit, filtering in and out of the sandboxes, or waiting for a close friend or family member to return, hoping to never...
 
Hear The Knock.

Attend The Funeral.

And Bury their Dead,

 ...like the Cowherd family, and thousands of others, have since this day, nine years ago.