Yes I have memories and plenty of thoughts. I am a seventy-five year old Marine. You know the theme…Once a marine always a marine! My first thought was “How dare they!” then…Ok, find out who, then dig them out! Hit them so hard they will be remembering what they did a thousand years from now. We remember the Revolution, the Civil War, the Spanish American, WW1 and WW2, Korea, Vietnam and all the brush wars from the Banana Wars to the Sand Box. Lets never forget the Americans who gave all they had on 9/11. B.C. in Washington State.

Bill Cundiff

I took off on a flight to Miami from Washington Reagan at about 0730 on 9/11/2001. While in the air the pilot told us a plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center Towers. He didn’t say what kind of plane so I thought maybe a small private plane. A little longer he said a second plane had hit and I immediately knew it was a terrorist attack. Shortly after we were put quickly on the ground in Charleston SC. As I got off the plane I saw the TV showing the collapse of the twin Towers. It was surreal. I rented the last available car and drove back to DC. I could smell the smoke from the Pentagon as I turned off of 95 onto Rt 1 through Old Town Alexandria. As I pulled into the parking lot at Reagan Airport to retrieve my car and I was met by heavily armed police who told me to come back tomorrow. I drove home around midnight right past the still burning Pentagon. My thoughts were how easily I could have been on one of those planes. As it turns out I lost two of my cousins who worked at the top of the Twin Towers, a classmate from Annapolis who was the pilot on one of the planes that hit the towers, and the plane that hit the Pentagon hit the Navy Command Center that I had commanded just 6 years before. Since then both of my sons have volunteered to serve our nation in the war to bring those responsible to justice. My oldest was an Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan and Iraq as an Army Captain, and my youngest is a 2nd LT in the USMC. We will never forget, and I will never forget how what started as such an ordinary day would change the world we live in so dramatically.

Tom Flanagan USN Retired.

I was stationed at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington, D.C., as an USAF enlisted pathology technician. My rank was Master Sergeant. I recall stepping outside earlier that morning and noticing what a clear and delightful fall day seemed to be shaping up.

Once word got out something was going on, Army, Navy, USAF and civilians came into the break room to monitor the TV; initial consensus was that some idiot had flown his plane into the WTC. When the second plane made contact, I looked at the Navy Senior Chief and we both nodded to each other; at that point everyone knew what the deal was.

A couple hours later, we were all in the auditorium, being briefed. The Pentagon had also been hit, and there was word going around that the Department of Labor building had too been hit. The Director asked for volunteers; I was then detailed to the command post where we went to work coordinating the recovery, post-mortem examinations, identification, and forensic evidence gathering for the Pentagon and Shanksville, PA.

Lastly for that day, I noticed that it was relatively easy to drive away from the District, but the DC police checkpoint for vehicles coming in evidently was deliberate in its security procedures; the line coming in was backed up well into Maryland, foreshadowing future airline security procedures. Two weeks later, the detail ended, by then we had relocated to the Dover AFB Port Mortuary.

Chris Sepulveda
MSgt, USAF (Ret)

It was a beautiful September morning. My mom had just called my wife and asked if we were watching the news. Our relaxed state of mind vanished quickly as we began watching the events unfold.

Like millions of others we watched in disbelief and horror as the towers fell and the Pentagon was hit.

Then the events from that day began to hit home.

My aunt JoAnne had called my mom expressing concern that her son, my cousin, Kenny hadn’t called when he reached California. Kenny was a flight attendant for American Airlines (AA) and was supposed to have reached Los Angeles the day before with his wife and fellow flight attendant, Jennifer, working on the same flight. They were flying together so they could launch their 3-week vacation together when they reached LA.

My mom wasn’t able to muster up the courage to call American Airlines to ask about Kenny and Jennifer so she asked me to help. Always the optimist, I wasn’t overly concerned and was eager to relieve my aunt and the entire family so I got busy calling.

By mid-afternoon I was able to get through to the right people at AA who were fielding calls from concerned family and friends. I carefully stated and spelled the names of Kenny and Jennifer and the woman told me that their names were NOT on the Flight #77 list, which was the flight flown into the Pentagon. Elated I immediately called my mom. Unfortunately the lines were clogged and I wasn’t able to get through for quite a long time. In fact, I had enough time to go out and grab a 6-pack of beer so I could celebrate. I will never forget the emotional high when I heard they were not on that list.

Finally able to get through to my mom I gave her the good news. Surprisingly, she calmly asked me if I had told the person I spoke with at AA whether I had mentioned that they were part of the flight crew or not. I had not. When I called them back late in the afternoon they gave me the news that none of us wanted to believe. They were indeed on Flight #77 on 9-11 working to make sure passengers were safe and comfortable.

Kenny was an only child and one of our closest cousins. He and Jennifer were two of the happiest people I’ve even known. The pain isn’t as sharp as it had been for years, but it still hurts whenever I think of them. Unfortunately, there is no avoiding the hurt each year when we all reflect on the terror inflicted on our people that day.

David Coakley
Kenny and Jennifer Lewis

Just as when JFK was killed I’m sure anyone of age you ask could tell you exactly where they were that fateful day. On September 10th I had traveled to Denver from my home in Massachusetts the night before and what stood out to begin this whole week was that when I flew out from Connecticut’s Hartford Airport, On that flight I was SEATED next to an Air National Guardsman who just happened to also be a recruiter and being an eight year USAF veteran myself we struck up a nice conversation which helped pass the time and at the end of the flight he had giving me his business card. The next morning waking up at the hotel in Denver just before our annual one week sales meeting was about to begin. I was watching the Today show when all hell broke loose and like all my colleagues from around the country needless to say the sales meeting was a bust as we all basically just hung around the TV all week watching as this horrific ordeal unfolded. Having lived in Denver some years ago it was a very eerie site to go outside that week and look up at this big blue beautiful sky and not see one contrail from a high flying jetliner. I don’t believe there was ever another time in my life I needed and wanted to be with my family back home in Massachusetts as this feeling of helplessness was unbelievable. All anyone could do was hope and pray for the first responders, victims and possible survivors of this horrible act of terrorism on our country.

When I was finally able to get back home at week’s end once the airports had all opened up is was as if I had been gone a year, it was good to see and hug my family again. A few months later my youngest son who had wanted to be a fire Fighter for some time just as his Grandfather had been for forty years. He seems to have been motivated by the fire fighters at ground zero to kick his future into high gear but was not having much luck getting into a department . To make a long story a little shorter, He ask me what I thought he could do to make his dream happen. Funny enough I still had that Air Guardsman’s business card so I handed it to him, Today my son Andrew has been a USAir guard fire fighter for 8 plus years as well as a civilian firefighter at the same airport. As horrific an events as 9/11 was, out of that tragedy I have to believe it also motivated people from all walks of life from all over the world from being victims of such acts of violence to become very positive/strong role models for future generations.

Pat Jolicoeur
Easthampton, MA