After reading Col. Childress’ account of 9/11, I went back and reread the events of that day in my chronicles. After reading it, I thought I’d post it here as an expat’s view of the situation from outside the base in Kunsan City.  It covers from Sep to the end of Dec 2001 and there were a lot of things I’d forgotten about that happened in those terrible days. Everyone’s got a story of where they were and what they were doing on that day. It is etched in every American’s memory.   This is just one American expat’s chronicle.

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Sept 11, 2001: America Under Attack

September 11: After the attack on the New York World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon people in Korea stood in shock and disbelief. However, there had been an increased alert on a possible terrorist attack in Japan and Korea circulated in the previous week. So in one sense, the base was immediately prepared for action. There was an immediate base lock-down. All military were immediately recalled to duty and all leaves cancelled. Only emergency services remained open on base and Non-DoD personnel (Korean workers) were furloughed. The military throughout the world was put on alert status for possible war.

Throughout America there was a pervasive sense of shock and the outcry for reprisals. The Korean government swung into action also and immediately sent the para-military riot police companies to the bases around Korea. No one knew what was going to happen next. The bases remained in a state of high alert.

An expatriate, Kalani, was teaching classes in his school, when his daughter told him about the attack. At first, what she said did not make sense — airplanes crashing into buildings in New York. Then the airplane crash into the Pentagon. This kind of news was too macabre to be true. It had to be wrong…he could not believe his ears. Then he turned on the Korean TV station and saw it with his own eyes. There were reports of the Pentagon being hit. Then reports of other aircraft being missing. News was sketchy and confused in the initial hours. The only thing he could murmur was, “This means war!” America’s homeland had never before been attacked. Yes, there was the War of 1812…yes, there were a few novelty attacks by the Japanese on the California coast in World War II…yes, there had been threats of a Cuba Missile attack in the 1960s…but NEVER had America been attacked in modern history.

And where was President Bush? He was in Florida and suddenly he was on his Air Force One and disappeared. The newscasters didn’t know. Americans were starting to panic as to the reports of Washington being attacked. They needed reassurance, but it was not until hours later that second hand news was broadcast that the President was enroute to an undisclosed location. Finally at 1:04 pm in a speech at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, President Bush announced that security measures were being taken and said: “Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.” President Bush left Barksdale AFB for Offutt AFB, Nebraska. The Navy dispatched aircraft carriers and guided missile destroyers to New York and Washington. Around the country, fighters, airborne radar and refueling planes scramble. The North American Aerospace Defense Command went to its highest alert. No one knew if further attacks were imminent.

Kalani finished his classes and went home to watch the news on AFKN for the rest of the night — not sleeping with his eyes transfixed on the TV. The news on Korean TV was still patchy as conflicting reports were received from America…translated and rebroadcast. No one knew who had caused the attacks nor why. There was a lot of suppositions and the newscasters started to show the wear of long hours of constant broadcasting.

Throughout America, military planners were dusting off old contigency plans — dating back to the Cuban missile crisis — over what to do during attacks on the homeland. Aircraft went on full alert throughout America. USAF F-16s in bases from Hawaii to Nevada to New York were uploaded with air-to-air missiles and readied to shoot down civilian aircraft in case of a second wave of suicide attacks. After the Pentagon was hit by Flight 77, F-16s were overflying Washington and New York to shoot down any aircraft entering their airspace. The air avenues into the continental U.S. were locked down. All inbound flights were diverted to Canada or Alaska. At 4:30 pm EST President Bush left Offut AFB, Nebraska for Washington.

As Kalani watched the news on AFKN at home, the only thing he could feel was horror at the sight repeatedly played of the aircraft crashing into the twin towers — and a demand in his gut for vengeance. There was nothing political correct in his mind about statements of “justice” — the only thing he wanted was retribution. There was only a feeling within his gut that there must be retribution — swift and terrible on whoever caused this.

However, he could also sense from the horror that something strange was happening. He had seen the American people pull together in emergencies and disasters before. This is an American trait — but he had never seen it on a national scale. He suddenly felt that what he felt thousands of miles from America — all Americans felt no matter where they were.

September 12: Slowly tales of the heroic actions of the police and firefighters in attempting to rescue the people from the towers emerged. Slowly the numbers started to appear at first as estimates and then as real statistics. The numbers in the “thousands” were staggering, but no one knew exactly how many were in the building and how many escaped. It numbed the senses to talk of deaths in the “thousands”…and a suicide bomber choosing these targets simply because they would exact such a toll. There was nothing symbolic in their action. We were talking of cold-blooded premeditated murder on a scale that rivaled Nazi war criminals. The scenario was too horrible to put into words. How could human beings do such an act? In the end, the death toll was around 3,300 helpless souls lost.

Finally the full details of which planes were hijacked on September 11 were released. None of the facts about the hijackers were known at the time. Later it would piece together that of the four teams of hijackers on Sept. 11, each had five members except the one on United Airlines Flight 93, which had four. 

United Airlines Flight 93: Boeing 757 departed from Newark, NJ, at 8:01 a.m. local time, bound for San Francisco, with 38 passengers onboard, 2 pilots and 5 flight attendants. United Airlines confirmed that Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.

United Airlines Flight 175: Boeing 767 aircraft, departed from Boston at 7:58 a.m. local time, bound for Los Angeles, with 56 passengers onboard, 2 pilots and 7 flight attendants. An FBI source confirmed that Flight 175 struck the north tower of the World Trade Center.

American Airlines Flight 11: Boeing 767 with 81 passengers, nine flight attendants and two pilots, hijacked after takeoff from Boston en route to Los Angeles. American Airlines confirmed that Flight 11 hit the south tower of the World Trade Center.

American Airlines Flight 77: Boeing 757 en route from Dulles Airport near Washington, carrying 58 passengers, four flight attendants and two pilots. An FBI source confirmed that Flight 77 struck the Pentagon.

At the same time, the heroics of individuals began to emerge on the news. Selflessly 200 firefighters and 78 policemen died in the collapse of the towers while trying to rescue others. The story of the passengers on the ill-fated aircraft over Pennsylvania who knew they were going to die and started the attack on the terrorists with their statement, “Let’s roll.” The plane crashed in a field in Stony Township, Pa., after passengers fought back against the hijackers. Stories of the cell phone calls from the stewardesses and people on the planes to their loved ones or others in authority showed courage, devotion to duty, love and compassion. The human side of the tragedy started to unfold.

World Trade Center Destroyed

After the initial shock, the Korean news broadcast interviews with the people on the Korean Air Lines 747 that was bound from Seoul to the U.S. It was intercepted by U.S. fighters off Alaska and forced to land in Alaska. The fighters were ready to shoot down the aircraft if disobeyed. The people on the flight remembered the KAL 007 flight shot down by Russia with total loss of life — and were scared witless. As all flights into the U.S. were cancelled all the folks returned to Korea…after a long delay on the ground. For the first few days, international traffic into the U.S. was completely shut down. The impacts to those in Korea awaiting PCS’ing home was horrific as they were basically stranded at port.

At first some people were talking of Iraq setting up these attacks, but Kalani instinctively knew that no “civilized” nation would ever sponsor such an attack — even Iraq. This was an attack of fanatical terrorists — on the same scale as the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon or the Palestinian Hamas suicide bombers in Israel. This was a terrorist attack but in the intial days of the horror, no one knew. International spy agencies pooled their information to try to solve this riddle.

But even in the first days of the horror, Kalani was asking the question that millions of others were asking: What was the CIA doing? What was the FBI doing? Why were these highly-touted investigative agencies unable to provide some warning of these horrors? Though no one wanted to start finger-pointing, it was there. Both political parties stood behind the President and all America rallied around their leader in the initial days. The finger-pointing would happen a lot later. America was under attack and everyone rallied round the flag!!!

September 15: President Bush named Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect for the September 11th attack. He told the American people to “get ready for war.” Some of the details of the Al Qaeda terrorist network began to be made public over TV and people started to get an uneasy feeling that they were going to be fighting shadows. At the same time there was a rebirth of patriotism throughout America as “flag-waving” suddenly became fashionable. American flags in stores were all sold out.

The base remained on high alert with the cars being checked at the front gate using a high-tech scanner along with dog sniffers and individual searches. It took about a hour on the weekends and an hour-and-a-half during the weekdays to enter the base. Most workers on base parked their cars outside and caught the bus. Personnel entering the base was not hampered — only vehicular traffic. It was faster to get to work by bus than by car.

September 17: The New York Stock Exchange reopened to great fanfare — more as a statement that the attack would not cripple America — trying to project a business as usual atmosphere. However, the share prices plummented. The U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank both cut interest rates by .5 percent to head off recession. In Korea, there was great concern that the Korean Stock Markets would falter as well.

September 19: The U.S. dispatched more than 100 combat support aircraft to various bases in the Middle East and Indian ocean areas. A large naval task force was deployed to the region as well.

The round-the-clock coverage of this one event started to burn people out. One could sense that people wanted a return to normalcy — even though there was a realization that was slowly sinking in to America that they were NOT SAFE anymore. For the first time, terror had struck at the homeland.

Though the Americans were experiencing a change to their pysche, the Koreans who live with this fear of imminent attack daily from North Korea, there was no change in the outlook. The best way I could put it would be that common Koreans felt that this was an AMERICAN problem — not a world problem as President Bush made it seem. Though the Americans thought the rest of the world would see it exactly as they saw it, they were suddenly aware that they were basically alone in this fight.

Another thing Kalani remembered was his anger at the American AFKN TV shows downplaying Ossam bin Ladin’s Saudi Arabian origins — because of our “friendship” with the Saudis. The amount of bin Ladin’s wealth was a mystery — though the TV referred to him constantly as a millionaire — and made a big deal of the Saudis taking away his citizenship. It is rather striking that the Saudis took away his citizenship in 1998 — long after he was recognized internationally as a terrorist — more as an act of expediency when Bill Clinton was going to attack Afghanistan Al Qaeda terrorist bases — rather than a true act of solidarity against terrorism.

Kalani’s personal opinion was that as the tale unraveled, they would probably find direct links to financial aid to the Saudis. He somehow could not bring himself to trust the Saudis — who say one thing to the American “infidels” and another to their brethren at the mosques of Mecca. His days with AWACS in Saudi Arabia taught him that the Saudis friendship with the Americans only extends far enough to protect their precious oil fields. Later on, America would see for themselves this blatant attitude when their Finance Minister tried to “buy” America’s acquiescence on sharing some of the blame for the attacks.

September 20: British Airways cuts 7,000 jobs and grounded 20 of its aircraft. Other airlines were certain to follow suit as air travel had fallen dramatically in America. In a few more months, many airlines were seeking Chapter 11 protection to reorganize. Some tried to blame the increased security at the airports, but the truth was that Americans still did not feel safe in flying after the events of Sept 11th.

September 21: On the 21 Sept the USFK announced that personnel could shop downtown between 5AM-10PM, but all bars still remained off-limits. Slowly things were returning to normal, but according to the USFK Commanding General, General Schwartz, “things will never be the same.” Heightened security will continue for an unknown period…but in the meantime, many of the bar owners in A-town were silently suffering from the loss of business. Though they understood fully why this was happening, they wished the curfews would be lifted.

September 24: After 24 Sept, the base main gate reduced the level of its vehicle entry inspections. The vehicle inspections were similar to the Yongsan spot inspections with mirrors and cursory inspections. Procedures for entry into the base greatly speeded up. However, all barriers and riot police with rifles still remained in place. The bars off-base remained off-limits.

October 2: After fiddling with various names — some of which were set aside such “Operation Just Cause” etal — “Operation Noble Eagle” and later “Operation Enduring Freedom” started in Afghanistan. On 2 October, the U.S. struck at Afghanistan with limited air strikes. Very little changed in Kunsan AB daily operations.  However, there was a heightened awareness that the possibility of terrorist reprisals for the strike. The base remained on a heightened alert.

October 5: Army National Guard patrols began work at dozens of U.S. airports. THEN CAME THE ANTHRAX SCARES!!! Bob Stevens, a 63-year old Florida man died from anthrax inhalation. Later it would reveal that many newspaper offices and Congress was targeted. Other cases of anthrax exposures were identified. Also were the increasing complaints of “mysterious white powder” throughout the nation when it came to mail. Instead of being taken as crank calls, suddenly all states set up agencies to investigate these complaints. America was still in the grips of hysteria.

In response to the Anthrax threat in Korea, the US was in a bit of a quandary. The vaccine manufacturer had proven unreliable and there were insufficient quantities to go around. The high risk units (Afghanistan) would receive the dosages, but the Korean units were put on a hold. Instead, the USFK announced that new equipment to detect biological agents at its military installations in South Korea in preparation for possible bioterrorist attacks. Actually, the equipment was already in place around Kunsan AB with the sensors from the ChemCo contractor. These sensors detect chemical agents and a whole group more, but their ability to detect biological agents is unknown. The sensors are tied to the Disaster Preparedness Center. However, one wonders what good is detection, if you have no prevention or protection.

On the Attack in Afghanistan

October 10: During the Chusok holidays in October, the normally bustling A-town bars catered to strictly Koreans. American forces continued to strike military targets in Afghanistan, but the focus for Americans was quickly turned to the Anthrax scare.

Though it was a big news story in Korea, the Chusok holidays and other national interest stories crowded America’s concerns aside. For the first time, it could be seen plainly that the fight on Terrorism in the Korean general public’s eyes was America’s problem — not Korea’s. Though one won’t find it in print, the general attitude was that Korea had done nothing to Osama bin Ladin’s group and therefore had nothing to be fearful of. All the hate in the Arab world was focused on the U.S. and Korea did not want to share in the limelight with America. Though the Korean government said the right words in dealing with the fight on terrorism, the general public did not view it as THEIR fight. This was America’s battle.

October 12: On 12 October, the entry onto base had been somewhat relaxed with only an ID check, though the base gate was closed to prohibit a straight-through terrorist run on the gate. As for A-town, the bars remained off-limits though the A-town restaurants were open for servicemen. Shopping downtown was authorized.

October 13: On 13 October, President Kim Dae-jung visited Kunsan Air Base for a quicky window tour before heading to Chonju — a showing of solidarity with America in its fight on terrorism. President Kim had personally ordered the Riot Police to protect the bases from possible terrorist attack. The tour was a really quick tour — all the terrorist barriers were removed and his limousines and bus group zipped through the base. Kalani smirked that Kim Dae-jung’s entourage driving through the base as 60km hour didn’t really instill any sense that the terrorist crisis was over. Kalani also noted that it seemed like every motorcycle traffic cop between Kunsan and Chonju was assembled at the front gate to guide Kim Dae-jung to Chonju.

October 22: On 22 October, it was reported that the off-limits on bars in Korea had been lifted, but that it was limited with a curfew from 10pm-5am on Saturdays. However, to the bar owners any respite was welcome after enduring the loss of business for so long. (The curfew is indefinite, but GIs must be out of the clubs by 9:30 every night. Discretion of the curfew hours was left to local commanders.)

October 30: By the end of October, Kunsan had returned to “almost normal” with a return to checking ID cards at the gate for entry — instead of the car-by-car inspection. However, the gate terrorist barriers were still up and the Humvee with the machine gun pointed at the gate still there.

November 10: The state of alert continued ith a heightened sense of possible attack, but there was a definite relaxing in the tension at the main gate. Gone were the long lines of cars and entry was speeded up. Once the attacks against the Taliban were well under way in Afghanistan and no terrorist reprisals were experienced in Korea, the security community started to relax. Right or wrong, the operations at Kunsan AB started to resemble “business as usual.”

December 10: Operation Noble Eagle and later Operation Enduring Freedom continued in Afghanistan. The initial idea that this would be a Collin Powell-type of operation with quick in-quick out options faded into a Donald Rumsfield sort of quagmire. Rumsfield started “hinting” that U.S. forces would be needed for years to come to establish “stability” in the country. Kalani couldn’t believe his ears. Shades of Bill Clinton!!! This was a “nation-building” operation…something George Bush said the US would NEVER get involved in again.

December 15: By mid-December, the ID checks were starting to get a little sloppy as Kalani would pass through the gate and some GI would “forget” to render the normal salute for retired officers. Everything else though seemed to have returned to “almost normal” — except for the anthrax scare which had created additional overseas mail procedural problems. There was no Christmas Mail from school kids anymore — but rather open letters were posted on the post office walls from the kids.

End of December: In the U.S., there were growing voices demanding a Congressional Inquiry of 9-11. The finger-pointing had started. There were cracks starting to show in the previous months of solidarity of purpose as a nation.

The protests came from the radical left. The radical left were claiming that Bin Laden, his family, the Carlyle Group and the Bush family were linked. There were claims that the war in Afghanistan was over oil or natural gas with a pipeline from Russia through Afghanistan — versus any war against the Taliban. There were claims that Bush and Cheney were linked to this oil connection (along with destruction of the opium trade). The dissidents Democrats started to come out of the woodwork. (See 9-11 Unanswered Questions.) There were claims that the CIA continued to fund terrorism even as the US claimed to fight towards the end terrorism in the world. Whether you believe in the claims or not, the point is that the honeymoon between Bush and America’s radical left was over by December 2001.