story9451.xml

story9451.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-09-01

I come from a broken home that started in the Bronx, New York. My name is Luis and I'm Puerto Rican. I have struggled to live with my mother and my sister for as long as I can remember. Our financial status finally got better once I was in 9th grade. I graduated high school in Chesapeake, Virginia back in June of 2001. I signed up to join the United States Navy and go into bootcamp by the end of 2001. I left my family and friends, and everything that I held dear on September 9th, 2001. On the 10th of September I was in Pennsylvania and had just taken off when the first plane was hijacked, but sent crashing to the ground due to heroic efforts of the passengers on board. By the late evening of September 10th, 2001 I was in Great Lakes, Illinois, inside a Navy base, for bootcmap. We did not find out about September 11th, until a week before our graduation date of November 17th, 2001. It was a defining moment in my career in the Navy, and a defining moment in my life period. Our Guest of Honor for our graduating ceremony, was the Honorable Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary for the United States. We received a speech that day from him, that made me feel honored to be in the best Navy in the world. I did not get to go through September 11th like much of the world did. I was at bootcamp, isolated from the world around me. On my Military I.D., it says my date of entry as being 10SEP01... and I get off of active duty by 10SEP05. My aunt perished in the WTC bombing along with hundreds of other innocent people. That specific act of terrorism is the reason WHY I'm in the United States Navy, and giving up a lot of my freedoms to defend the freedoms of people like you in the United States of America. I am United States Sailor, dedicated and highly motivated to put an end to this evil plaging the world. Thanks for listening. You can contact me at my e-mail address at: STANiAM2K@aol.com