This is only the second 9/11 that I have spent in uniform (and last year I was putting it on to go to a classroom). But this time it felt more poignant, as I was in charge of a Company (we had about 40 people doing things) and we were doing more Army type stuff. We were out on a range, ensuring that everyone had qualified with their rifle. I did make sure that we did take a minute (not at the morning times since we were busy at the time) to note the significance of the day, then we made sure that everyone went back to work. The other time I noted it personally is when we went rapid fire to shoot off the remaining ammo at night (we got lots of tracers and illumination rounds.
It was a SPENDEX scenario (expend the ammo exercise) which is part of the joy/quirk of the Army procurement/logistics system where you get penalized if you do not expend all the ammo they gave you), and on top of that I had promised the firefighters (who we had to call in twice already that evening) that if they just hung around for a bit I would ensure we wouldn't have to call them again. So out went most everyone onto the range, 12 firing positions for rifles and 2 for the grenade launched flares. I kind of wish I had pictures but I couldn't resist the temptation of shooting off 150 rounds of ammo, mostly tracer (my true hint that my people like me? There was never any doubt that they put away ammo because they know I love to shoot). It was awesome, people went into burst fire, flares were drifting (at one point we had some 8-9 flares in the air at the same time... I may have shot at them, and everyone knew because I had the tracers).
I would have never guessed 9 years from the those tragic events (where I felt helpless in my parents house watching those terrible events) that I would be out here, wearing our country's uniform with 1LT rank running a range, helping to train some people who, in a scant few months will be on their way to Afganistan.
