Everyone remembers exactly when and where they were when the two great towers fell that fateful morning, kind of like all the animals in the forest knew exactly when and where Bambi’s mother got shot by the hunter. I was on Parris Island, SC in boot camp for the Marines back in the day. It was another morning during “team week”, which was kind of a break for all recruits in the middle of boot camp. We were kind of spread out and assigned to different posts on the Island– working laundry, range, chow hall, etc. I had the luck of working at the Medical center, one of the cakest jobs where I got to hang around Navy guys who didn’t treat me like a kid and actually called me “Private” instead of “recruit” (it was a big deal to us back then). There was a female Gunnery Sergeant that was the Marine liason there, whom was serving that billet because in her words “being a DI sucks”. Yes, she even treated us like real people instead of lower-than-dirt and brought us coffee and donuts every morning, and never really yelled at us for any reason at all. The best part was, all the brand spanking new recruits that showed up, I got to boss them around like it was cool. At that point the DI’s started to let our hairs grow out a bit (instead of buzzing the entire head), and the 1st Phase recruits thought I was a real marine. Basically, when encountering a real Marine while you’re still a recruit, you have to address him/her as “sir / ma’am” like you render honors to an officer. I was having fun with that shit.
One morning while walking to Medical, I say good morning to all the Docs and started making my rounds to collect and distribute clipboards to hang outside of each individual waiting room. I hear everyone gasping and there was a crowd mingled in front of the main waiting room’s TV set. All the docs, nurses, medical techs, and a few recruits that showed up early for physicals were sitting nearby like statues, but their eyes were peering towards the direction of the TV set. I asked them what the hell was going on.
“Some major accident I think, hit one of the World Trade Center buildings,” said one of the doctors. They kind of cleared a bit of space so I could see the TV set. And the video of the first plane kept playing over and over and over. We had to get back to work, but every single television set was tuned into CNN and throughout the hour, everyone was distracted. Then we got word that a second plane hit the second tower. This is no way a flippin’ coincidence, and to confirm our fears, a third plane flew into the Pentagon in Washington DC.
“Feng,” the female Gunny looked at me rather disheaveled after I returned to the reception desk. “We’re going to war, buddy.”
A recruit started freaking out because he was from New York City and one of his relatives worked in the Towers, he was begging us to use the phone to call home (phone calls from recruits were only granted by our DI’s on very special occaisions), and the Gunny didn’t even hesitate and handed him the phone. He was a big guy, and a tough looking guy too– I had the feeling he was one of those types that never showed fear in his life and probably thought boot camp so far was a big joke. I couldn’t remember who he was talking to, but this big recruit had tears coming down his face, and I was fearing for the worst.
He hung up the phone, and sat down still sobbing and speechless. A minute or two later he looks up at us and said, “I’m going to kill those sons of bitches that did this.”
Me too, I thought to myself. Me too, because at this point, we really don’t have much of a choice now. Sooner or later, we’re going to get sent out to whatever foreign turf belonging to the people that flew that plane, and we would actually have to apply what we have learned so far and put some rounds downrange. It wasn’t just airplanes that hit the towers and the Penthouse– reality hit too, we weren’t safe in our little bubbles anymore.
We were pissed.
Before 9/11, most of us signed up for the Marines thinking we would have an easy enlistment, maybe travel on an aircraft carrier, tour the world and make port calls in exotic countries by getting severely drunk and have lots of unprotected sex with the fine local women. Worst case scenario maybe, we may have to spend a few months in Bosnia or Kosovo for peacekeeping operations. And once our cakewalk enlistment was over, it was time to go back to college with the GI bill we just received– most of us signed up for college money anyway. We also signed up for the supplementary motive that we could become “Badasses” and learn how to put some serious hurt in people. Nobody honestly thought we’d be sitting in the current shitstorm that you see on the news every evening for the past 5 or 6 years that nobody really gives a fuck about anymore. I have made some of the best friends I could possibly have during the war, and lost many too. I was one of the last of the pre-9/11 recruits, where we didn’t sign up simply because of revenge. I had good intentions back then to make something out of my life, but who knew things would turn out this way.
We signed up to be a “Badass”, yet we were still so innocent back then. And when that first tower got hit, we would never be young again– it was our time to shine.
Do YOU remember where you were during 9/11?
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