I only saw the buildings come down on TV as I was back in the SCIF. We got busy fast. It was the first time since retiring that I had wished I still wore khaki to work.
If I had volunteered to go back on active duty it would not have been accepted. I was working for NSA and they would have blocked it. As it was my work was necessary for the younger guys to go do their thing.
National Defense is a team effort. Everybody has to do their part, whether it is the part they want or not.
SpyNavy
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Thanks for sharing that perspective and history. And for your service, of course.
o7
“National Defense is a team effort. Everybody has to do their part, whether it is the part they want or not.”
Thank you for everything.
Love that poem.
And I remember 9/11 like it was yesterday. Typical Tuesday at work, we were busy directing the switching operations on various parts of the power grid, to allow people to work on lines, breakers, transformers, and such. After the first plane, we tuned our TV to the news (normally on the weather channel because weather plays a huge role in operating the grid). Anyway, we saw the second plane hit the second tower, Laura Dhue (who had just switched from Fox to CNN, I think) exclaimed “what a coincidence”. I shouted out in the room, That ain’t no f&&&&ing coincidence.
At that point, we focused on putting all our equipment back in service and cancelling as many jobs as we could. We decided that having the power system as intact as possible was a good idea, since we had no idea where another plane would hit. We were under attack.
My mother, who still lived in Northeast Ohio, was golfing at St Bernard’s Country Club in her Tuesday morning golf league and saw 2 fighter jets fly eastward at supersonic speed. Later, I learned that they were from the Ohio Air guard based in Toledo and were planning to intercept flight 93 if it continued into Ohio. It did not.
There is internet speculation that one of those planes might have shot flight 93 down, but that is purely speculation. And to tell the truth, I don’t think I want to know if that happened or not. There were heroes on the plane and that is all I need to know.
The skies were eerily quiet for some time after that day - I remember going outside to smoke (a habit I gave up around the end of 2001) and noticing the silence. No planes in the air. Very odd.
An innocent time but that innocence shattered with that event, the worst in my lifetime. And knowing now what I didn’t know then, I long for that more innocent time.