September 11, 2001

Every generation has one of those days. One where you remember where you were and what happened. For me, it was the Challenger Disaster in 86 and September 11, 2001. First some photos to commemorate 9-11, and then my story.

The first diorama features all the first responders. By that time, police and fire department were easy to find. I had to find a Barbie flight attendant on Ebay to honor them.

The second diorama includes the military that went into Afghanistan shortly afterwards. 

My memories of 9-11. I had been out of the active duty army for a year but still in the National Guard. I was living and working in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I had just returned from a business trip in DC on Sunday the 9th. My wife (now ex) had departed Sunday evening for a business trip herself. 

I am an early bird, but Tuesday morning I was exhausted from my trip and decided to sleep in a bit. I was watching ESPN around 8 (mountain time) which was 10 eastern when my wife called me to ask if I was watching the news. I said "Yes, I'm watching Sportscenter." She said turn on the real news dummy. 

I couldn't believe it and I stared at the screen mesmerized.  I finally got off my ass and went to the office. My coworkers thought I had already been called up by the National Guard. I worked in a customer service call center. We started releasing everyone to go home to their families. Since my wife was out of town and had no kids, I stayed at the office. By mid-afternoon, two supervisors and I were the only managers in the building. 

Then we were told to start bringing everyone back. That didn't work. Like putting toothpaste back in the tube.  Working for a communications company, we saw that a lot of our customers were using us to communicate (early internet days) so we had to be on call to support them. We managed to get some of my team back in the office.

Around 5pm, I took a dinner break and went to the local arts and crafts stores and bought about 200 little US flags. We put them up throughout the 700 seat call center. Around 11pm, we called it a day and went home. It was weird not seeing any air traffic around Albuquerque for the next few days.

I did end up being called up by my National Guard unit for two weeks. We created planning around securing all New Mexico airports including armed HUMMWVs being stationed at Sante Fe (which has like two gates). 

Interesting note - our top salespeople were enroute to Dulles airport on September 11th for a sales conference. They completed emergency landings in San Antonio and Oklahoma City. Also, our headquarters was in Dulles near the airport. Turns out the hotel I checked out from Sunday morning to return to New Mexico was where the Dulles hijack crew stayed. We know this because another supervisor who checked out Tuesday morning was on video tape checking out the same time as the hijacking crew.  :-0

My next Annual Training with the guard was supporting the Salt Lake Winter Olympics in January 2002, shortly after 9-11.