My 9/11 Story

Every veteran of our generation gets this one free war story.

"Where were you on September 11?"

In the sense of "Shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile" from Henry V, Generals to Privates. Admirals to Airmen. Sergeants to Seamen....we all get to (and arguably must) share exactly where and what we were doing when the attacks happened. This event defined our generation of veterans.

A little context as to where I was: I reported to Basic Military Training (BMT) at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas on 5 September 2001. I had enlisted the previous December, a few days after my 18th birthday, and spent 10 months or so in the delayed enlistment while I finished high school. By entering delayed enlistment in December 2000 I inadvertently set this story up. Also, unwittingly set me up for an American coming-of-age summer straight out of an 80's movie...but that's a different story.

When I arrived at BMT, I was assigned to the 323rd Training Squadron, Flight 714. I and the 95 other recruits in my flight and brother flight had spent five days in the peacetime Air Force. Most of our peacetime week was spent acclimating to military life. Hair Cuts, Medical, Administration, and shouting by Military Training Instructors (MTI) had been the extent of our first week at Lackland. If it weren't for the incessant shouting of the MTIs, I would have described it as idyllic.

The morning of September 11, 2001, started like every other morning up to that point. While Reveille was at 0600, our flight received a trashcan alarm clock at 0530 followed by our MTIs shouting and generally causing hate and destruction throughout the dorm bays. This was followed by a few smoke sessions of pushups, flutter kicks, and jumping jacks. After the rude wake-up call, we headed down to PT formation at 0600 for calisthenics and running. An hour outside in the dark, September, Texas Morning was concluded with1-minute showers, and ready to go to chow by 0730.

Until that point, Nothing was different for us at basic training. I even got yelled at a breakfast in the snakepit after retrieving my eggs, bacon, and toast.

The Snake Pit was where the MTIs sat during meals. It was perfectly positioned so that every trainee had to pass the Snake Pit after going through the chow line before sitting down. After I loaded my tray with food and red drink, I made a feeble attempt to pass through the pit without getting yelled at. There was another trainee from our brother flight who had attracted the attention of two MTIs for his hat hanging out of his pocket. I made the mistake of side-eying the interaction and one of the MTIs caught me.

"TRAINEE" bellowed the Technical Sergeant from behind the MTI's tables. I must have instinctively made a face.

"DON'T YOU GRIMACE...GET OVER HERE" he shouted.

If I hadn't been so scared, I would have laughed out loud at the idea of being compared to a purple, Happy Meal character. I must have paused too long as I faced him. He immediately chastised me for not dropping a reporting statement. "TRAINEE HAGER...GIVE ME A REPORTING STATEMENT"

My mouth felt like I had eaten a giant Charleston Chew. It didn't seem to want to say words. I managed to slug through "TRAINEE HAGER REPORTS AS ORDERED".

In five words I had already messed up.

"REPORTS?!?!? WHAT ARE YOU...A WEATHERMAN" he closed the distance to my face with his face and knife hand simultaneously. "I GUESS YOU'D RATHER BE AL ROKER THAN AN AMERICAN AIRMAN. DROP!"

All in one motion the Tech Sergeant grabbed my tray from my hands, placed it on his table, and pointed at the floor. I sprawled to the floor and began pushing Earth. His robotic cadence of "DOWN 2-3-4" was slow enough to hurt but not fast to tire me out. The eternity of the exercise was no more than 30 seconds but it felt like a decade in my head.

"RECOVER!" he bellowed. I bounced back up on my feet. "Now," he said in an almost whispering voice, "how about that statement....correctly this time".

"SIR, TRAINEE HAGER REPORTING AS ORDERED." I gasped out. About that same time, a Master Sergeant had manifested himself out of thin air behind the Snake Pit.

Had he been there the whole time? No...well, maybe? I was not about to side-eye anyone else in the Snake Pit today.

The Tech Sergeant turned around and had a quick sidebar. At the time I thought it had to do with my lack of Airmanship. My irrational, sleep-deprived mind believed that I was about to be kicked out for messing up my reporting statement. I just stood there at the position of attention, awaiting my discharge. I wonder how much Mcdonald's pays dishonorably discharged folks I thought to myself. My pity party was broken up by the Master Sergeant. "GO EAT TRAINEE" he shouted.

I just stood there trying to figure out if another MTI could release me from the first MTI's smoke session. Before I could ask the question. The Technical Sergeant looked at me, motioned with his head, and grunted, "Dismissed."

I grabbed my tray and filled through the columns of four-seater tables to the first open table. The whole affair only cost me two tables from my original spot. Unbeknownst to me...the events of September 11th had already begun trickling into the 323rd TRS. I would later do the math and figure out that Master Sergeants were never in the snake pit. He had come down to the dining facility to let the MTIs know that America was under attack.

After gulping down my cold eggs and bacon, I waited for the rest of my table to finish. We then all rose together and departed the columned dining room, placed our trays at the garbage window, and joined the flight formation outside the dining facility. Everyone had their noses buried in Airman's Manuals at some semblance of parade rest when we joined the formation. The four of us fell into the back of the formation and retrieved our Airmen's Manuals, joining the silent study session.

The remaining 15 or so Trainees filtered out of the dining facility. We were two full flights in formation for a few more minutes before SSgt Voisine and SSgt Baum, our flight's MTIs, exited from the dining facility. They called the formation to attention, sorted the formation with a "taller tap", and told us to file upstairs to the dorms. I was too scared from my earlier interaction with the random MTIs to notice something was off in their instructions. The previous 18 times we left chow since arriving at basic was concluded with yelling and physical punishment for the smallest of infractions in the formation. We had not been at basic long enough to forgo this ritual that was typically in effect well into week two or three of basic.

We filed upstairs to our dorm in orderly columns. 714 on the right side of the stairwell and 713, our brother flight, on the left. Both flights filtered into 713's dorm and entered the dayroom. Once in the dayroom we packed in and sat crisscross-legged on the floor. There was some quiet whispering about the plan for the day but the room was still mostly silent. All 96 of us sat for what seemed like the longest half-hour in history. Most of us expected some sort of cruel and unusual punishment was coming our way.

Each minute that passed only added to the tension of the impending doom.

Finally, our MTIs entered the dorm around 0900 Central Time. The standing dorm guard announced "FLIGHT UH-TENCH-HUT!" and "LADY ENTERING THE DORM" for SSgt Voisine. We all stumbled to our feet to the position of attention as the MTIs made the walk down the hall from the dorm's entry. SSgt Baum called "At ease, Trainees. Be seated".

We returned to our cross-legged seats. SSgt Baum waited a moment and looked around the room. "Eyes on me" he whispered to the packed room. We all shifted our 1000-meter stares from the front of the room to SSgt Baum. He took a long pause and said, "Men. America is under attack."

The room took another long pause together. Before we broke our concentration and started looking around at each other in bewilderment. There was a quiet murmur through the room.

"Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. Another hit the Pentagon. And a fourth..." he trailed off. He quickly collected himself and stopped any public display of sorrow. "And a fourth has crashed into a field outside DC." The room murmur turned to a dull roar. SSgt Voisine silenced the room with "Silence Trainees."

She then called three Trainees who were from New York City to go into the MTI office to attempt to contact their families. They would be unable to get through since NYC's telephone system was overloaded. Ultimately, their families would be okay.

SSgt Baum told the rest of us to read our Airman's Manuals and that they would try to get more information. He left the room and entered the MTI office with SSgt Voisine and the Trainees.

None of us studied our Airman's Manuals. Murmurs turned to chatter about what we had just learned.

Was this just an elaborate training exercise?

Who did this?

Why?

How's my family?

Will basic get cut short so we can go fight?

I stood up and asked who else was going into EOD. Two guys, Ryan Bobzin and Carl Dill answered. The three of us moved to the side of the room and formed an immediate click for the rest of Basic Training and continued to EOD School. We started asking similar questions about our future career field choice between each other. Through cosmic coincidence, the three of us managed to not only graduate from EOD school but went on to all complete 20 or more years of service in EOD.

The derailment of our basic training only seemed to last a day or two. We filed down for lunch a few hours later. There was no Snake Pit during lunch. After lunch, we moved into a classroom in what should have been a customs and courtesies class. Instead, we watched a VHS tape of the planes hitting the towers.

A few people vomited. Many of us (including myself) cried.

That evening the base transitioned into Force Protection Condition Delta. A complete lockdown of the base and all of the training squadrons. We started pulling guard duty around the squadron for a few days. At some point, a rumor started that more terrorists were on a train heading for Lackland. I remember being super amped pulling guard duty with my Lackland Laser, a $3.40 flashlight with a yellow cone on it. I remember thinking that my seven days of Air Force Basic made me a trained killer.

Thank God I never had to shoot my Lackland Laser in violence.

By September 13, Basic had resumed its normal ebb and flow just with added security. The following six weeks (Air Force Basic used to be short and sweet) went pretty fast in hindsight. While the berating and shouting continued on our adventure to become Airmen, it went quickly.

Toward the end of basic training, on October 7th, I was assigned to work the squadron CQ desk. It was a small room near the entrance of the squadron. BAllI had to do is sign trainees in and out, keep a log, and give reporting statements. The same Master Sergeant from my Snake Pit experience entered CQ in the early evening. I stood up, gave a reporting statement, and did everything an almost Airman should do. He said plainly, "At ease Hager." I was surprised he knew my name.

The Master Sergeant then retrieved a television remote from an adjoining office. He pointed the remote a tube television mounted about the CQ desk....Fox News flickered on to President Bush was making this speech:

We both sat through the speech silent. At the end of President Bush's speech, some pundits began giving their opinions on the matter. The Master Sergeant turned to me and plainly asked, "What do you think Hager?"

I looked at him dumbfounded. A senior NCO had asked me a plain question and I didn't know what to say. Hell, it was the first time I had any personal interaction with a senior NCO. I said, "I don't know, Sir. I wonder if it will be over before I get my first duty station"

"Ah, I wouldn't worry about it. You're going to spend the next year in EOD school and if you're lucky, make it to your first duty station. The whole thing will probably be done with before Christmas". the Master Sergeant reassured me.

We then sat there in silence until my CQ shift was over at the end of the hour...neither of us fully understood how wrong we were about the looming War on Terror.