By The Stars & Stripes in memory of the 9/11 tragedy has an article published that shares stories of what servicemembers remember doing when the attacks happened. I thought this story was particularly eerie:
Col. Franklin Childress was edgy on the morning of Sept. 11 as he sat on the balcony of his one-bedroom apartment in Arlington, Va., waiting for the movers to unload his furniture.
“I was anxious to get back to work,” Childress recalled.
Then the phone rang.
“It was my pastor from back in Hawaii. He asked if I was all right. He told me to turn on the TV,” Childress said.
Childress had arrived at the Pentagon for his new assignment Sept. 4, and his household goods were to arrive the next day. But because of a clerical error, there was a delay. He was told his goods could be delivered on Monday, the 10th, or Tuesday, the 11th.
“I told them Tuesday,” he said. “It’s a decision that saved my life. Everyone around my desk was killed.”
At the time, Childress was serving under Lt. Gen. Timothy J. Maude, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for personnel.
Maude was among the 125 killed in the attack at the Pentagon.
Seven years later, it’s still difficult to think about what happened that day, said Childress, who now serves as spokesman for U.S. Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany.
“When you look at the graves of those who perished it gives you an eerie feeling. Some survivor’s guilt,” Childress said.
“The good lord has a reason for me being here. There is no scenario in which I can say it was chance. It was the work of a higher being. God spared me for some reason.”
When he thinks back on 9/11, one of the images that comes to mind is the weather.
“I remember how blue the sky was. It was the most beautiful day you could imagine in Washington,” he said.
In the days after the attacks, part of Childress’ job was talking to the media and getting the stories told of those who were killed and those who acted heroically.
“I will have to tell you, there was a lot of tragedy there. But there also were a lot of heroes, which gets overlooked sometimes,” he said. “I think it would have been a lot worse if there weren’t people who put their lives at risk.” [Stars & Stripes]
Read the rest of the article because it has more stories from other servicemembers who remember 9/11.
I for one was stationed on Camp Casey when the attacks happened. The night before I fell asleep watching Monday Night Football that was aired on Tuesday night in Korea and woke up in the middle of the night to turn off the TV when I saw the burning buildings. At first I thought it was a movie and then it donned on me that this was for real. That is when I woke up everyone else in the barracks building and we watched what was going on.
We were eventually alerted but I couldn’t get to our unit headquarters because the road was sealed due to somebody calling in a bomb threat on the 2nd Tank dining facility. Yes in the midst of the tragedy of 9/11 some idiot called in a bomb threat. So I went back to my barracks with a few other guys and watched TV until the road was reopened.
From there on we got our Bradleys ready to roll if need be, drew ammo, and pulled lots of guard duty. Fortunately we went out to the field two days later which allowed us to miss the insane amount of guard duty that was being pulled on Camp Casey. We came back from the field over a week later and still every vehicle entering the camp was being thoroughly inspected. We waited in line for two hours to get our Bradleys through Gate 2 due to the inspections.
However, despite all the guard duty and other nonsense that was going on after the 9/11 attacks, there was very little complaining from the soldiers and just about everyone was highly motivated to go and fight back against the people who did the attacks.
So that is my 9/11 story. Feel free to share your own 9/11 stories in the comments section.
12:07 am on September 11th, 2008 1
I was living in D.C. at the time. The smoke from the pentagon was visible and people were freaking out about false reports of a carbombing at the state department. Phone lines were clogged and it was impossible to call anyone. Some people I knew tried to take a taxi out of the city, but the traffic was so heavy they gave up after a few blocks and walked back.
1:16 am on September 11th, 2008 2
I just came back from PT and was eating breakfast before going to work. We seen it on the TV and was called 10 minutes later by the platoon sergeant to come in when we can because there was traffic. I lied right off the west Fort Hood airfield and it took me 4 hours to get in. We spent the night at the hanger glued to the TV in our shop in the hanger wishing we could do something.
6:00 am on September 11th, 2008 3
I was eating breakfast while living in the PI and watching TV.
Was shocked when I saw the first plane hit, was beyond belief when I sat there watching the second plane angle in, as if it was in slow motion, but the outrage came as I watched people jumping to their deaths to escape burning to death.
That afternoon, as I was on my way to school, I had to walk past the market area where the Muslims had their kiosk stands set up…it was all I could do to keep from kicking one of them right in the head.
To this day, and afetr having worked in Iraq on a couple of gigs, I still say that "The only Good Muslim is a Dead One." They are all Radical in my book…
7:11 am on September 11th, 2008 4
I, too, was in Korea when it happened. A Korean girl called me on the phone some time after 10:00 pm to tell me that something was happening in America. I watched it on AFN for an hour or so, waiting to be alerted. The alert never came and I was too riled up to sleep alone so I drove from my house in Anjung-Ri to the Korean girl's house in Pyeongtaek to spend the night. I tried to report in to work at Camp Humphreys on September 12th, but there were miles of cars stretched from both the Humphreys main and CPX gates. The MPs were completely overwhelmed.
I finally made it in to duty around 10:30.
9:51 am on September 11th, 2008 5
I was in Hawaii and had been up, as usual, all night reading. I had just finished checking my email and had turned the tv I always keep on for background noise over to CNN before going to bed. The image was a close up of the gash in the first tower.
I turned up the sound, and they were still guessing about whether it was a plane or not and guessing about how a plane could hit.
I knew enough from my Civil Air Patrol days to know there was no way in hell a plane big enough to cause that gash could have do so by accident.
I popped a video in the VCR to start recording and debated waking my wife up. She had to get up for work in a few hours and needed more sleep…
I woke her up and was pacing back and forth from the bedroom to living room and calling family in Georgia to see if they knew yet.
I was in the bedroom when the 2nd plane hit.
I've still got about 7 video tapes I made of news and other coverage from the first days and then weeks after the attacks. 3 or so of them are from the first two days. Then I have some from the first days of military action in Afghanistan and later Iraq.
Every year on the anniversary, when I'm teaching in the US high schools, I play the first tape for about 20 minutes – and we do a "what do you remember from that day/period"
9:36 pm on September 11th, 2008 6
While he was serving in Korea, I got to know Col. Childress. Very good guy, truly an officer and a gentleman (and a good angler). If it wasn't for the clerical error, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of knowing him. Strange how life works out.
7:19 am on September 12th, 2008 7
I think every American can agree with him when it came to the day of Spetember 11th being eerily beautifull. Hardly a cloud in the sky across the entire country for the most part. I thank God that was the case because it helped a speedy safe grounding of all flights over the U.S.
1:23 pm on September 11th, 2011 8
Local community college – east coast. Heard about it feom a vietnamese friend who turned on the bbc. Somebody asked me “who did this”. I replied “bin laden”. “Who?”
2:30 pm on September 11th, 2011 9
Fort Hood Texas. I was in my two room apartment getting ready to go to post. Saw the second plane hit, grabbed my TA-50 in two duffel bags and ruck and off I went. Wasn’t sure when I would be coming back. Turns out I was back that night. Production control was glued to the tv. We were all in disbelief and wanted to go right away. But of course it took a bit longer than that. I got to Camp Taji Iraq in March 2004. After a year at Stanley and an in country transfer to the Hump for 2003.