September 11th, 2001 - Part 2 of 4

We all remember where we were that day...what we were doing when the world turned upside down.

Here is my story.


I was in Bosnia, stationed at Forward Operating Base Connor.  It was a very small camp, only a hundred fifty yards long by 75 yards wide, give or take.  Bosnia and Kosovo were the hottest things going on at the time.  We were out on the pointy end -- the only FOB in the most dangerous part of Bosnia, the Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, and three hours away from the closest friendly forces at Camp Comanche / Eagle Base.  Google Maps still shows my tiny little basecamp, even though it no longer exists.  I  had been there for six months, since the end of March, and I was ready to go home.

For several weeks, the Serbian Army had been conducting 'exercises' in which they charged armored units right up to the border between Serbia and Bosnia.  This map shows how close we were to the border - just three miles south and six miles west.  It would take a minimum of three hours for the first friendly ground forces to reach us, so our mission was to hold on for three hours while the rest of SFOR (NATO Stabilization Force) came charging in. We all knew that if the Serbs rolled their armor, we would be dead or captured long before SFOR got there.

These exercises were designed to rattle our cages a bit.  I was in charge of basecamp security, so my job was to prevent the cage from being rattled.  One of the ways I did that was by conducting exercises that varied our security status from our normal state of 'high' to 'ridiculously high', maybe even into 'ludicrous security' or even 'plaid' (end gratuitous Spaceballs reference).  At random times, I would change bits and pieces of our security status, just to try to keep my soldiers alert, and to keep whoever was watching us off guard.  Sometimes I would order more dog patrols, extra security in the guard towers, or maybe close one of our two gates.  It wasn't much, but it was really all we could do.

On September 9th or 10th, I don't recall now, I ordered a 72 hour 100%, full up security exercise.  I didn't have a reason.  It was just another of the random security exercises.  It was a pain in the butt, though, because we only had 120 or so soldiers on FOB Connor.  72 hours was about as long as we could maintain 100% security before exhaustion and fatigue took their toll.

I spent a good portion of my day in the TOC, or Tactical Operations Center.  If I wasn't on a patrol or traveling between Camp Comanche and FOB Connor, I could usually be found in the TOC.  That was where we had all our communications gear, the computers, and all the other stuff you need to command a company scattered all over the butt end of nowhere, Bosnia.  We were six hours ahead of New York, and so around quarter to three, one of my soldiers came into the TOC and told us that the first tower had been hit.  No one knew what was really going on.  There was speculation that it was maybe a private plane, or just an accident.  No one was really talking about a terrorist attack.

Right around 3:00pm, just fifteen minutes or so later, my battalion operations officer, then Major (now Colonel) Thomas Carden, called us on the tactical radio net.  I'll never forget the call:

"Animal X-Ray, Animal X-Ray, this is Devil Three.  ThreatCon Delta, time now.  This is not a drill.  I say again, ThreatCon Delta, time now, over."

Threat Condition Delta meant an attack was imminent or underway.

I turned to my friend, Scout Platoon Leader Scott Jackels, and said, "Today's a good day to die."  He gave me his trademark lopsided, sardonic grin, and said, "Yep.  It's a good day to die."

My first thought was that the Serbs were making a run at the border again, and maybe weren't stopping this time.  Whatever was going on in New York seemed awfully far away.  I started giving orders to gather the command team, and start some of the necessary movement to block the road coming into the base camp.  Within minutes the camp was locked down as tight as you could possibly imagine, even past our 100% security drill.  Our 100% security drill was essentially a  ThreatCon Delta drill, so for the most part we were ready, but knowing an attack was imminent or underway made us think of a couple more things we could do.

The command team got together.  My company commander, then Captain Charles "Buck" Bennett, was out on patrol.  I called all the patrols back in.  I had forty-five minutes before Buck got back to the basecamp, and I wanted a full-up operations order ready to brief him as soon as he pulled in.  A company operations order normally takes about four hours.

We got it done.  Scott Jackels, First Sergeant Sibley Matchett, Sergeant First Class Davy Weaver (who died in Afghanistan in 2008...Davy, I miss you, brother), and I got it done.  Buck pulled in, we briefed him on our plan, and he said, "Do it."  He didn't need to make any changes.

It was about an hour and a half after the ThreatCon Delta call from Tommy Carden that I went over to the dining facility to get a cup of coffee.  The news was playing on the TV in the DFAC, and that's when I really found out what was going on back in the United States.