On the morning of Sept 11th, 2001, I was at Ft. Knox, KY, for One Station Unit Training (OSUT) to be a Cavalry Scout (19D) in the United States Army. We joined a peacetime army, and at least for me (perhaps naively), I did not expect that my time in the military and subsequent career would be defined by war. As I remarked in my journal that day 23 years ago:
“It’s unbelievable, it’s hard to fathom that this can happen to us. Surreal is the word.”
If memory serves, the troop was conducting first aid training that morning. One of the drill sergeants interrupted the class to inform us that the country was attacked, or as he artfully put it, “someone has just pissed in our Cheerios.”
Despite the gravity of the attack, in keeping with standard protocols, the drill sergeants did not allow us to watch television or listen to the radio for any news about what had happened. However, they allowed those of us with family in New York or the D.C. area to call home. My dad, at the time, was working in the intelligence community and often spent time at the Pentagon, so I was able to check in with my family. I recorded in my journal:
It’s scary, my father came within a day of being a number among those killed in the Pentagon. I called my mom, she said that he was there the day [before] the attack
The thought of losing my father made real the events that seemed so far away despite their apparent magnitude. The phone call aside, news of the event came to us secondhand through the drips and drabs afforded to us by the drill sergeants. Guys caught trying to watch TV (through the crack of the door or window into the drill sergeant’s dayroom) were punished with strenuous physical training. I don’t recall being an especially sneaky soldier, but according to my journal entry on 11 Sept:
I went and snuck a peak in the dayroom at the news. I saw one of the 737s fly into the World Trade Center, un fucking believable.
In addition to my act of micro rebellion, we listened to President George W Bush’s address to Congress, which the drill sergeants played through the speakers at the firing range, a respite from an intense night fire exercise with the newly introduced M240B. (Unbeknownst to me, the M240B would be my hefty companion in Afghanistan three years later).
Beyond that, news about the aftermath of the attack and the developments of the war in Afghanistan came via the mail. My mother, who was not a fan of George W. Bush, wrote to me and remarked:
Did they let you-all hear & see the President’s Address last night? I would give it a “ten.” Of course I listended to the speech with the idea I have both sons in the military.
She printed off news stories and sent them to me, as did the families of other soldiers. As you may imagine, she also kept me informed with family news. At the time, my brother in the Marine Corps Reserve heard rumors of an impending deployment, much like the barracks chatter I was enduring and proliferating. In a letter from 27 September, my mother (worryingly) declared that:
I hope you have “heard” wrong about being deployed. Hope just a “male thing.” Your brother seems to want to go over all the action. Would just kill him for you to go before him. Travis came home today and said his Sgt. said they were going to be called up. I hope both cases are wrong.
She also prophetically remarked:
Pay very close attention to your “war lesson” they might become very important to you in the future. Just keep working on your upper body strength
My grandmother aired similar thoughts in a letter dated 28 September 2001:
I am sure you have been kept very busy what with all the things you have to learn to be a good soldier. And you have to be a good Brandan- but of couse you realize that. My thoughts and prayers are with you and Travis, always.
After a few weeks, the initial stock started to subside, especially when it appeared that the war in Afghanistan would perhaps be a short endeavor fought by special operations and light infantry (how wrong, I know). My brother certainly felt that way:
First of all, don’t believe the bull shit mom is saying in the note.
He added:
My Reserve station told me that we will be called up. I personally think they are full of shit. I think this war is for the Spec Ops, not Truck Drivers, so go figure.
As a comment on the lightening mood, he noted that despite the scuttlebutt that:
I still think we wont be activated. Im also getting ready for the Marine Corps ball next drill in November, it will be fun. I will get drunk with my fellow Marines and my Date will give me a ride home! Sounds cool uh!
His optimism and mine would prove misplaced. It took us both a few years and, for him, another war, Iraq War II, for the events of 9/11 and the world that they made to finally touch us.
After finishing basic, I stayed at Ft. Knox, enduring an inglorious assignment supporting the U.S. Army Armor School. After completing my short initial enlistment (just two years, back when that was a thing), I reenlisted with the Army National Guard, with whom I reclassed into the infantry (11B) and deployed to Afghanistan from 2004 until 2005. I went back for several shorter deployments as a civilian in support of JSOC, a series of deployments during which I became increasingly jaded about the war, a disillusionment that contributed significantly to my views on American foreign policy in the present.
My brother did in fact, wind up being deployed, but to Iraq, where, as a lowly truck driver, he endured some severe fighting in Mahmudiyah. His experience over there, much like my dad’s, was a close call; he narrowly avoided death on serval occasions. During one event, an insurgent mortar team walked rounds into his position, only to be gunned down by an American helicopter. He may very well have come within seconds of losing his life.
He’s just started to open up about it.
We were deployed at the same time. I don’t know how my mother endured it, although I know she often slept in our beds at home. She kept our old childhood bedrooms meticulously clean.
Thankfully, my first tour in Afghanistan was considerably less harry, as most of it coincided with a lull in the fighting in 2004. Except for an incident in which I was very nearly killed by an IED, which thankfully was a dud, my time was largely uneventful. From my war journal from 18 June 2005:
We’re leaving [FOB] Lagman today. fresh off yesterday’s mission. Went to clear routes to FOB Wolverine. […] We set up an OP [observation post] that night and over the radio there was talk of another attack on the PRT [Provincial Reconstruction Team]. Also an intel report came down that our convoy ran over an IED that didn’t go off.
We had an electronic warfare detachment on that mission. They collected radio chatter between two members of the Taliban who argued over whose fault it was that said IED didn’t go off. I was the M240B gunner in the lead truck. Had that IED detonated, I might not be here. As the war in Afghanistan heated up in 2005, I spent the last few months in a rougher part of the country, Zabul Province. My last few months in country were marked by dumb luck.
Two decades later, I don’t know what to make of 9/11, the world it created, or my place in it. Perhaps, at base, the only lesson to draw is to be thankful that I and my family are still in it.
For, if my father had his meeting one day later at the Pentagon, he might be dead.
If events happened just a little bit differently during my brother’s time in Iraq, he might be dead.
And, if two Taliban members hadn’t botched constructing their IED, I might be dead, too,
But we aren’t. And regardless of what meaning 9/11 might have now or in the future, that’s enough.
