Remember how you felt?
General
I was in the 82nd Airborne Division dawning a parachute at Fort Picket, VA. to jump on to a clay runway my engineer company had just built for C-130 aircraft landings. As the entire 160 soldiers were preparing for the jump, going through our final jump training our Executive Officer pulled up in a military sedan, threw open the doors and yelled for all of to listen to the radio. We couldn't believe our ears. Just then the C-130 was landing on the aspalt runway to pick us up for our parachute jump. No sooner had the plane landed when the second airliner hit the second tower and we all knew right then that this was an act of war and we were heading straight into the mouth of demon in a short time. As the story would go, the plane that was to take us up was grounded by order of the Government and we didn't jump but immediately prepared our equipment to return to Fort Bragg for further orders.I remember telling my soldiers (I was the platoon sergeant) that we are going somewhere but not to worry, that we will all be coming back alive. What else could I tell these brave young men and woman? They were scared, I had to put on the brave face and pick up and move on.
