9/11 My Outrage

USS Dubuque, LPD-8 Courtesy US Navy

Hello everyone, if you are a regular reader of my blog you have already read my first entry on 9/11 and how I'm getting so upset at my fellow Americans and other people of the world who are bad mouthing the United States over Afghanistan. So the last I posted I was telling the story of where exactly I was on that day.

For me and all the other sailors stationed on board the Amphibious Transport Dock USS Dubuque, LPD-8 it was actually September 12th because we happened to be on a port call in Darwin, Australia.  First thing we heard was rumors going around the ship that a small plane, perhaps something like a Cessna had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. At hearing this we all stopped what we where doing and took a break to see if we could find out was happening by tuneing in one of the news stations.

We turned on the news, and basically getting from them that it could have been anything from a light aircraft to a passenger jet that had gone terribly of course but not even a whisper about a possible attach. Then as we were watching another a jet liner came into view and smacked right into the other tower. Like I said in my first post on 9/11 all hell broke loose!

Before any of us could respond the general quarters (battle stations) alarm went off, our commanding officer didn't even second guess, he knew something bad was going down.  All of us on duty assembled on the flight deck and where given weapons and ammunition, the ship installed weapons which are normally unloaded while in port where loaded up and manned.  Our first responsibility was to make sure the ship and our crew were protected, our second job was to get over three quarters of the crew who was out enjoying liberty in Darwin back on the ship so we could get underway.  Sailors and Marines are not a dumb lot, and as soon as the attacks started making the local news there in Australia it didn't take long to get just about everyone back on board.

At this point all of us on board knew that our deployment schedule had totally changed and we would be heading somewhere to strike back, to be honest most of us thought our target was Iraq, but myself I wasn't surprised to find out that it was Al Qaeda after all they by this time had already killed some of our shipmates from the USS Cole. Within probably about 12 hours we where manned and ready to get back out to sea. I remember seeing others on board, as well as myself watching planes take off and land at the Darwin airport and just wondering if we or Darwin could be an attack, but Thank God no further attack came.  I to remembered that soon we would loose communication with the outside world so I immediately emailed my wife Sandi to tell her I love her and was OK.  My Father In law Gary Vines who was also in the navy

and although permanently assigned to the USS Pellilu happened to be on board the Dubuque that day of the attacks and he to wrote Sandi's mom to do the same.  About 1 hour after the attacks our phones and email was off. You can't have people telling family what our plans of attack were.

Like I said about 12 hours later, all of us exhausted from getting ready to get to sea, and watching the news we headed back to sea.  Now this is another thing I won't forget, as we started to slowly leave port, sliding through the channel the citizens of Australia lined the banks of the bay all the way to the beach waving US Flags and holding signs declaring their support for the American people, at that time I thought we would have the majority of the world's people supporting us.  We didn't know the death toll yet but we knew it would be large and because the main target was the World Trade Center it wouldn't be all American citizens who where killed.

As the coast of Australia slipped over the horizon that day I knew the world had forever changed and that we where in for a long deployment, I was right on both counts as our normally six month deployment stretched to almost ten and here we are nine years later still fighting in Afghanistan.