story11310.xml

story11310.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2005-02-23

I remember the morning of September 11, 2001 like it was yesterday. It was a beautiful, sunny, fall morning and I was working at Otis Air National Guard Base (home of the 102nd Fighter Wing) in Cape Cod Massachusetts where I was also a member of the Air National Guard. My job was as a mechanic on the F-15a fighter aircraft. For those of you that don't know, we provide air sovereignty for the northeastern corner of the United States. We have a number of F15s fully loaded with weapons and ready to go at a moments notice if any threat were to arise in the skies above New England. Anyways, I had come to work at 6:30 a.m. as usual and it was a routine day so far except for the beautiful weather that encompassed the flightline. I was dropping off a part at the supply warehouse when the guys behind the counter directed me towards the television with the words "A plane just hit the World Trade Center." I stared at the TV in disbelief as the second plane hit. And at that moment I thought to myself it must be armegeddon or some world war breaking outand how someone would pay for this. I was consumed with anger and disbelief. And over the base intercom came the words "All men to battle stations". It also occurred to me that two jets had scrambled minutes before seeing the news and I remember thinking, "there's no flying scheduled this early". Anyways, all hell broke loose over the base as we all worked our butts off to scramble the rest of the jets parked on the flightline. I guess to help supply air support in case there were any more hijacked planes and to get the jets off the ground in case they were in danger of being hit by terrorist attack. We worked feverishly for days to get our base ready for our new role in homeland security and subsequently, I was activated for a year under Noble Eagle patrolling the skies of the east coast. I'm proud of myself and all the other members of the 102nd for their actions that fateful September day as we pulled together to get our mission done. As you've heard and as I found out later that the two jets that were scrambled that morning were the ones that had tried to intercept the two hijacked planes that hit the towers. The pilots were told to get to New York ASAP and asked if they had a problem with having to shoot down a commuter aircraft. I guess it would have to be the lesser of two evils but it must have been a nerve racking experience for the pilots involved. Who knows what would have happened if the word had gotten to us earlier about the hijacked jets. I guess God only knows.