Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Pensacola, FL - Tuesday, September 11, 2001

I got one over on the Navy this day...I decided to sleep in. I slept all the way to 6:45, not the usual 4:00 I've been stumbling to during the last 7 weeks. I barely remember my wife getting up at 5:00 am for work and I sure didn't hear her leave. So I extended my little mini vacation by a few hours...so what? I was about to be a CHIEF PETTY OFFICER...my stuff didn't stink!! Who was going to mess with me? NOBODY was the answer, not on this day. Yep...I was the master of my domain for the first time. I decided when I was going to start work today. And then, I was going to end work when I felt like. Yep...life was good. My arrogance and self indulgence was so American....so us!!

I showered, shaved, got myself ready at my speed and grudgingly headed to the base, across Escambia bay, 19 miles from my house. We were in the thick of hurricane season, but it was eerily quiet this particular year. As I drove across the causeway into Pensacola, it struck me that we'd had hardly a puff of a tropical depression, let alone a hurricane, but Tropical Depression Gabrielle was spinning down in the southern Gulf and might be headed this way. Well, a hurricane is much better prospect to me than the earthquakes I was raised with. You never knew when an earthquake would hit, but hurricanes? Oh yeah, I could handle that. I could just leave and let the insurance cover the cost. No problem. The only problem was the storm that was brewing wasn't the one I was thinking about.

07:45 CDT - The world I had known.....was no more...
As I was driving down Davis Hwy heading to Corry Station, I had the usual programming on the radio. Lex and Terry were doing their usual yukking it up on the local rock station, TK101. As I came to the intersection of Olive Dr. and Davis Hwy, Terry broke in and said "now I know we say funny things and joke around, but a plane has just driven into the World Trade Center....I'm not kidding....we joke around and play pranks on a lot of stuff, but this is no joke." WOW....that was weird. Must have been some small cessna that thought they would get a good view and clipped the tower. 10 minutes later...."OH MY GOD....ANOTHER PLANE HAS JUST PLOWED INTO THE OTHER TOWER" came blaring over the radio. My first response was incredulation. What is going on here? I pulled into the base 10 minutes later and by that time my buddy, Bill Sprake was on post at the front gate....wow that was weird. I've never seen a Chief Petty Officer at the gate...hmmm..... He said, he got called out there quickly by the watch commander on base. Strange.

After arriving at the building I worked at, I went upstairs to the only TV we had in the building and saw for the first time, the horror that unfolding. Myself and about 100 other sailors sat in stunned gripping silence as we saw the building tumble one by one. We stood there with tears in our eyes as we saw the Pentagon up in smoke. By this time, it was clear....we were being attacked. By who? Why? Why on this day? The PENTAGON???? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THE PENTAGON....the singular most important symbol of military might has been attacked? No!! No way!! Not the Pentagon!! There's no way anybody could be that stupid to try to destroy the building with the power to yeild the most destructive military might the world has ever known. Nobody is that crazy. Must be some sort of explanation.

As the day unfolded, almost every single emotion had been felt. From the high of thinking you owned your own destiny....to knowing in the blink of an eye, everything you thought you knew about the world came crashing down with those towers. Shock was replaced by horror, which was replaced by grief, which was replaced by disbelief, which was replaced by anger, which settled into sadness of the highest magnitude. As the night wore on and I was watching all that was unfolding with my wife and 2 year old son, I knew that from that day on, nothing was ever going to be the same. Then I got scared for my family. What was next? What was going to happen to them? What was going to happen to our country? One thing was certain..NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME!! America's innocence died that day, and I was hoping our apathy would too.