Where were you 5 years ago tommorrow

Here we go.

I was on a US Naval ship that had been deployed for 4 months. We had been doing OPS in the Persian Gulf. Mostly intercept OPS with any vessels trying to leave IRAQ. We would intercept them and take those ships back to an anchorage location in the Northern Gulf area.

We had been relieved and were on our way back to the Red Sea to transit through the Suez Canal back into the Med. The plan was some liberty in Turkey, Italy, and Siciliy before returing to the US.

I'll never forget that afternoon our time. I had just knocked off my division and noticed that one of the taskings I had assigned wasn't completed. I had gone down to the berthing to chew some butt of my Petty Officer in charge. When I got there I noticed the lounge in the berthing was full of people watching TV. I thought they were watching a porn flick which is normally the only time the lounge is that full of sailors. As the senior guy of 70+ people in the berthing, when I arrived they looked at me and said "Boats, look at NYC."
We had live satelite feed.

Between the time I left the berthing and entered the senior enlisted lounge the second building was hit. Remember at this time we are off Yemen headed to the Red Sea doing about 30 knots. I turned to my fellow senior enlisted and said we are going to turn around. They didn't believe me but within 30 minutes we did.

On October 7th, 2001 I was on the flight deck at 8:00pm in the Indian Ocean. It was a glorius night, no clouds, all stars. We were about 2 miles from the USS John Paul Jones when the first tomahawks were fired into Afganistan. I turned to someone as the Tomahawk went over the horizen and said alot of people will die shortly. There was utter silence.

just a normal day...drove my kids to school, was only working part time at the time....got home, had laundry to do, turned on the t.v. to the news--just in time to see plane #2 fly into the tower. so much for a normal day. had one sister working in d.c. at the time, my brother is a d.c. fireman, and of course nothing from either as lines were down.

i hope we never see the likes of that day again.

and how i wished i could have gone to lebanon that day and punched that effing woman in the face, give her something to celebrate.

[paisjpq]

I was in the barn, running late to leave for my genetics class @ nine, listening to Howard Stern on the radio...I was turning horses out and didn't hear all of what was said so I thought it was some kind of joke. The farm is directly behind the airport where the Air Guard is stationed (since we are 600 miles from NYC and the coast etc they were called up). I am so used to hearing commercial planes take off and land all day that it was surprising how much the absence of flights over the next few days really made for an eeiry silence; Broken every 45 minutes or so by the take off and landing of the fully loaded f-16's (they shake the ground when they take off with live weapons, I guess because of the added weight they use more power taking off).
Instead of class I drove to my parents house where my brother was sitting dumbfounded in front of the television...pretty much spent the next three days glued to the screen.

[Byebyemermaid]

I got this about 2 weeks after September 11th and it's called on Monday.on mondaythere were people fighting against praying in school.ON TUESDAY YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN HARD PRESSED TO FIND A SCHOOL WHERE SOMEONE WAS NOT PRAYING.on monday there were people trying to separate each other by race,sex and creed.ON TUESDAY THEY WERE ALL HOLDING HANDS.on monday we were talking about heroes as being athletes.ON TUESDAY WE RELEARNED WHAT HERO MEANT.on monday people went to work at the world trade center.ON TUESDAY THEY DIED.on monday we were flying the 10 commandments on government property.ON TUESDAY THE SAME PEOPLE ALL SAID "G-D HELP US ALL" WHILE THINKING "THOU SHALL NOT KILL"on monday people argued with their kids about picking up their room.ON TUESDAY THE SAME PEOPLE COULDN'T GET HOME FAST ENOUGH TO HUG THEIR KIDS.on monday people picked up Mcdonalds.ON TUESDAY THEY STAYED HOME.on monday people were upset that their dry cleaning was not ready on time.ON TUESDAY THEY WERE LINING UP TO GIVE BLOOD FOR THE DYING.on monday politicians about budget surpluses.ON TUESDAY GRIEF STRICKEN THEY SANG G-D BLESS AMERICA.on monday we worried about the traffic and getting to work late.ON TUESDAY WE WORRIED ABOUT A PLANE CRASHING INTO OUR HOMES OR PLACE OF BUSINESS.on monday we were irritated that our rebate checks hadn't arrived on time.ON TUESDAY WE SAW PEOPLE CELEBRATING PEOPLE DYING IN THE USA.on monday we e-mailed jokes.ON TUESDAY WE DID NOT.TAKE CARE AND HAVE A GOOD DAY EVERYONE.MARK.