story613.xml

story613.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-05-15

Im a Marine, a new one to be exact. September 11th began as usual, waking up at 3:45am to work in the mess hall. I was in boot camp at the time. I rember the first time I heard, it was just after it happened, a friend of mine had just seen it on the TV as he was cleaning the tables.. He told a group of us and wee all just dismissed it immediately in disbelief. About a hour later a formation was called and we were briefed on the situation and were allowed to watch the news briefly. I rember the atmosphere distinctly. The whole room full of recruits waiting to be Marines was silent. The peaceful world we came into the Marine Corps under was shattered. People grew very scared. In boot camp it is supposto be a very cut off from the world enviorment, no news, no TV, no clue. No clue what is going on in the world around us. All we could do was speculate, and that lead to fear. Rumors began to go around about war, and defending this country against these new enemies with our lives. Noone there was prepared for that sacrifice. We all came into the Marines for diffrent reasons but honestly getting killed was never in our minds untill that day. People literally cried at night in fear that we were going to end up in some far off place cold, scared and fending for our lives. As mail began to come in people hoarded around the recipeints hoping to further thier knoweledge of the situation. As the truths began to surface and the speculations diminished the enviorment grew less tense. But I will never forget that week, it was one of the most terrifying experiances of my life. Ignorance causes the mind to fear for the worst. And that was exactely what happened.

PFC Justin Talbert 3FSSG Okinawa Japan.