‘We are going to war’: 24 years after 9/11, veterans remember fury, shock, sacrifice
The Associated Press
When planes flew into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania 24 years ago, the nation was filled with emotion — awash in shock and fury, followed by an outpouring of patriotism.
Former Marine Cpl. Garret Gold, who now lives in Fountain, was in boot camp on 9/11. He had just finished shooting his M-16 from the 500-yard line when a captain called the recruits over to tell them the news.
In that moment Gold said he was filled with fury over the attacks and he poured that anger and sadness into his training.
“After that day, every time I sighted in down range, every time I squeezed the trigger, I was picturing that round going into bin Laden,” he said. The founder of the terrorist group Al Queda, Osama bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs in 2011.
Air Force veteran and command historian at the Air Force Academy Brian Laslie was struck by the silence at the grocery store the day of the attack and how the country was united in the wake of the shock. Suddenly, American flags were everywhere.
“Political cartoonists who had prior focused on whatever the scandal of the day was, were doing these remarkable cartoons that sent the message of ‘we will get back up, we will rebuild,’” Laslie said. “There was an amazing amount of resilience.”
The patriotism led to a surge in enlistments, decades of loss and a tightening of security, particularly at airports.
On the Friday following the attacks, Laslie packed up his bags and went to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico for his first duty station. In only the few days following the terrorist attacks, he said the security at the base had transformed. The line to enter was long and now the base required a double photo ID.
Brian Laslie is the command historian at the Air Force Academy.
New agencies were formed, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Northern Command based in Colorado Springs, to prevent an attack like 9/11 from happening ever again.
The armed response started when the U.S. bombed Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, in an offensive that kicked off the nation’s longest war. During the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts more than 7,000 U.S. service members died and an additional 1.8 million veterans were disabled, according to a Brown University count.
‘We are going to war’
A former military police officer in the Marines, Ralph Rodriguez had enlisted the day prior to the 9/11 attacks, following his father into the military and joining a proud history. But that day, the service became much more real to the 18-year-old and so was the training delivered by his drill instructors.
Their message was clear: “We are going to war. There’s no doubt about it,” he recalled.
Gold had a similar experience. While at bootcamp the atmosphere changed and there was a clear understanding that war was coming.
Ralph Rodriguez is pictured in May 2002 at Camp Pendleton Calif. He served as a military police officer in the Marine Corps.
Rodriguez’s father tried to prepare him for the loss that was coming but it was still hard.
Within weeks of a deployment to Iraq, several of his close friends were killed in Fallujah. He felt he should have been with them.
It was incident that left him stricken with guilt until he talked it over with a corporal, who made it clear they didn’t blame him.
“It took hearing that from one of them to finally let go of that,” he said of the guilt.
While in training, Rodriguez specialized as a military police officer because he had witnessed the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School from the parking lot while taking a friend to visit his girlfriend at the school during lunch. After witnessing the tragedy that killed 14 students, he wanted to help prevent similar tragedies. As a garrison military police officer, he didn’t end up deploying to the Middle East, but he did go to Haiti where he faced armed gangs.
Since leaving the service, Rodriguez has worked in law enforcement, including as a school resource officer, and witnessed immense change and greater professionalism in the field compared to some “complacency” at the time of the attacks, he said.
As his daughter prepares to join the Navy and become a doctor and his son readies to commission into the Marine Corps, he has tried to instill in them the responsibility they will have for other’s lives and made it clear they don’t need to serve out of any sense of tradition.
‘I just felt I had to do something’
Former Marine and retired Army National Guard Col. Steve Walker thought he had largely finished his military service in 2001. He had finished his time in the Marines and planned to pursue a civilian aviation career, while also serving in the National Guard in missile defense.
Retired Army National Guard Col. Steve Walker served from 2005 to 2023.
When the attack happened, like many others he initially believed it was an accident, when he realized it was intentional he knew the response would be big.
Two years later he was deployed to Washington, D.C., to ensure nothing similar would hit the capital again.
“I wound up sitting at a missile launching control panel in Washington, D.C., that was protecting the skies,” Walker said. The control panel was part of the National Capital Region Integrated Air Defense System that was set up after the attacks to protect the city.
After 16 months working in air defense, he temporarily went back to his civilian career in aviation consulting but when he was called back up on another deployment to the capital, Walker decided to pursue the National Guard full time.
“I just felt I had to do something, maybe correcting the problem. … So that’s what I spent my life doing,” Walker said. The retired colonel’s career spanned from about 2005 to 2023 with some short breaks. He now lives in Texas and works in Pueblo doing initial flight training for the Air Force.
On 9/11, he pulls out his piece of Pentagon rubble and talks with his friends who need support.
Looking back at the changes, he sees progress but noted that evil will always find a way.
“I think we’re more aware and we’re better equipped,” he said. “I would just hope that the further away we get from it, it doesn’t leave our memory.”
Contact the writer at mary.shinn@gazettedev.gazette.com or (719) 429-9264.
