story381.xml

story381.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-04-10

We were in roll call at 0700, and our shift supervisor told us that the Twin Towers were just hit by possibly an airplane, and not to be surprised if we were busy at work that day. This frightened me, as I am a first term airman in the Airforce. I had only been at Mt. Home (my first assignment)since April of 2001. The first emotion that went through my mind was fear for our nation, the second was the fear of having to leave my son. At the time I was a single mom and my parents live in Indiana. While at work, I tried to tell my mother, without telling her anything, that we might be leaving and that she would have to come and get my son for me. As I was telling her, the second plane went through the tower. I knew then that it wasn't going to be too long. The day seemed to go slow, not knowing my fate. Shortly after lunch time we were called out to perform ops checks on the aerial refuel systems of the fighters. Most of them actually. We were told that we were supposed to be leaving within 48 hrs. All I could see, was my 3 year old son not remembering me when I finally would return after a 6 month deployment. THEN, I thought about the families that their children will never get to see them again because of some coward who hit us under the belt and ran! My adrenaline started pumping. I didn't even notice the fact that we were working a 15 hr shift and no lunch. I wanted to get the person who did this.
I didn't leave the states until Novemeber. When I got over there to the middle east, reality of where I was sunk in. I didn't know if we should trust our host nation, if they were going to set us up for failure and then TRY and take advantage of us while being on their soil or not. All I knew is that I was there for our nation and had a job. I would get so excited when the jets would come back without bombs on them, knowing that they had hit somebody/thing. When I heard that they were killing our troops after taking them as POW's, I was outraged. Then to hear that one of our natural born citizens was fighting on their side, enraged me. To know that there were ground troops over there trying to protect our United States and some losing their lives because of it. After that I felt free to write messages on the ammunitions that were being dropped. "Osama, you took me away from my family on Christmas. Now it is time to take you away from yours, forever."
This will probably continue on for a long time...I don't know. It is a small price to pay for all the people's lives that those heartless cowards have taken. Soldiers included!
God Bless all that have lost loved one's because of this tragedy!
A1C Reagles