9.11.2001 notes. Today, the Navy Reserve work did not go as planned.

I flew in on Sunday 9/10/2001 to San Diego, California. I checked in to the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters (BOQ) and went out to Old Town to the Casa Bandini … then got a good night’s sleep. I woke up at 5:30 and turned on CNN. Nothing much. By 6 AM (Pacific time), there was a fire in North Tower of the World Trade Center. Minutes later, all hell broke loose as the live coverage showed the second plane hit the second tower. I called Commander of the duty station to which I was supposed to report that morning. He said I should not report for a bit, “Call back in two hours.” I got ready to go.

I dialed in to my civilian job computer network, established “Instant message” links to my friends who were at work. No reports of any of my company employees or friends hurt.

For a couple of hours I watched as the towers burned then collapsed. No one could believe they were collapsing. I said to myself, “this means war”. I used IMs to tell my friends to “go home, go home now”.

At about 9 AM, I got the call to come in. {as I recall now, nearly five years later, someone said … “all the important people have been sent home … come on in now” … and thinking, “hey, what am I? chopped liver?” But that was not their intent.}

I brought Starbucks coffee for the team. On the way across the foot bridge, I called in on my cell and said I may just be able to hand over the coffee through the fence. The guards didn’t want me to come in. They told me no one gets in except “the Admiral’s staff and department heads’. Captain Xxxxxx said “he qualifies” (though I didn’t) and they let me in. All the civilians were sent home by now. It was like a ghost town.

The base was at Threat Condition (ThreatCon) “Delta”. Delta is the highest level of threat. “Normal” is normal peacetime status. “Alpha” is a heightened threat … we went directly from “normal” to “Delta”.

In peacetime, we are normally at Defense Condition (DEFCON) “Four”. Today, we went to DEFCON “Three”.

I heard rumors that we dispatching a string of AEGIS Guided Missile Cruisers to the east coast … to protect the cities. Each AEGIS cruiser, armed with 100+ long range air defense missiles can provide a ‘quite large bubble’ of air defense for cities of Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Washington and perhaps farther south).

Two Aircraft Carriers are on patrol, one off Washington, one off NYC. Each with nearly 100 aircraft to provide air defense.

At noon, we got a briefing from the Command Duty Officer (CDO). She had been on duty since yesterday, and did not know when she might go home. A Marine Corps Captain was reporting for CDO duty for the day, but they decided to double up, meaning they would stay together as a team and keep working, two heads being better than one.

My team was sent to go get lunch. Three of us left the complex and went to a deli. I bought 6 sandwiches, a six-pack of diet Pepsi, and some bags of chips. I got a $10 roll of quarters, not knowing how long some folks would be eating out of vending machines.

When we got back I took sandwiches to those who did not get to go out. The two Command Duty Officers, the crisis
center watch officers and one petty officer at the reserve military personnel office were glad to get something to eat.

We were back from lunch at 1:30 PM and went to a briefing.

At 2 PM, we met at the Crisis Center. Perhaps 20-25 officers and 3 enlisted. The plan is to set up a process to brief our Admiral, who was in the building) at 3 PM, then at 9 AM. We were asked to be very understanding and not to ‘pull rank’ if someone in a junior rank who was in charge asked us to do things. We were all asked if we knew what ThreatCon Delta meant … no one knew ‘exactly’ … and we decided that was a pretty normal state for us, considering none of us had been through that before. We just decided to use common sense, no to do stupid stuff, not to joke around.

Commander Xxxxx asked the reservists “who has to go back when their active duty assignment is up?”. Everyone volunteered to stay if needed, some said they would have to check.

We need to contact all military teams to find out if any of our travelers were on the planes or in the buildings [no reports of injuries]. Teams at sea were contacted, and teams scheduled to go to next week were contacted.

We did a full recall of all reservists. People are ‘on alert’ if they needed to go.

The admiral’s brief went well at 3 PM. He was primarily concerned with the our people, making sure the military and civilian staff were well taken care of and that all were accounted for and safe. A liberal ‘administrative leave’ policy was implemented.

After that, I went to my temporary office to plan the work I originally came to do.

I left the offices at about 4:30, went to the BOQ and changed to civilian clothes. I have to park about 1/4 mile away from my room, due to security. I took my uniforms to the cleaners to get them cleaned for Wednesday. I have three uniform shirts and two trousers. I planned to get one more shirt and two trousers. Now, the uniform shops are closed, behind the gates of bases ‘locked down’. [note to self: never go to war again without a full seabag]

I had a quick dinner in Old Towne San Diego and returned to the BOQ. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, and it will be a long time before things are ‘normal’ again.

I retired from reserve duty in 2004.