Basic trainees whispered among themselves after their military training instructors hustled them back to their dormitory dayrooms that 9/11 morning.
Airman Basic Joshua Kelly knew something serious had happened, but thought it was just part of the 347th Training Squadron’s Warrior Week training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. That morning, the trainees were in their tents watching videos of Osama bin Laden and terrorist attacks on the USS Cole and U.S. embassies overseas, as well as the Feb. 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Then, the MTI entered the dayroom, and the trainees stopped whispering. He sat down with a pile of dog tags tied in a knot in his hands. His eyes kept going back and forth between the dog tags and the faces of the trainees as he talked.
“How many of you guys came here for education?” he asked the flight.
Kelly and many of his fellow trainees raised their hands.
“Well, I guess your priorities have changed. This isn’t the same Air Force that it was. We’re at war.”
“I remember my MTI was visibly shaken up, messing with his dog tags,” said Kelly, now a staff sergeant and recruiter with the 343rd Recruiting Squadron in Rapid City, S.D. “He was hardcore, but we could tell he was obviously shook up.”
Along with the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Kelly observed his 10-year mark with the Air Force on Aug. 5. After basic training graduation, he went to technical training as an electrical power production specialist at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas in October 2001 and reported to Moody Air Force Base, Ga., in February 2002. Kelly stayed at Moody, where he met his wife, until he cross-trained into recruiting in 2010. He first deployed Moody to Ali Al Salem, Kuwait about nine months after arriving at Moody. His wife, who was also in basic training on 9/11, has deployed numerous times during her career.
“I remember being at the chapel for the BMT folks, and they showed a video of the plane flying into the towers. It finally set in. This was real. We were at war.”
That morning, Kelly remembers MTIs demonstrating how to put on the chemical warfare mask when he suddenly heard the radios on their sides. The instructors began talking quietly to each other until one emerged and addressed the trainees.
“We just got some information that there was an airplane with explosives that flew into the World Trade Center,” the MTI told them. He asked if any of the trainees had family members in the greater New York City area, and one raised his hand.
On the bus back to his dorm, Kelly heard the driver talking to himself out loud.
“I can’t believe they did it,” he said. “I hope we catch those SOBs.”
When the bus arrived at his squadron, he saw yellow rope around the building’s perimeter. Airmen were holding their Airman’s Manual as they checked IDs. The trainees who graduated that week had their ceremony in the squadron area’s overhand, Kelly said. Trainees in Kelly’s flight called home to tell their parents they might not be able to get on base for their graduation ceremony the following week. Fortunately, the parents were allowed on base by the time Kelly graduated.
But he was still thinking it could be just a realistic part of their training until the Sunday a week and a half after 9/11. The trainees didn’t see the constant replays of the airplanes hitting the World Trade Center that dominated the news in the days following the attacks, so a part of him was still saying it couldn’t have really happened.
That changed as he sat in the basic military training chapel that Sunday morning.
“In the back of my mind, I was still thinking that this could be training,” Kelly said. “We like to see stuff. We don’t like to be kept in the dark and want to see what was going on, like the normal news footage. We didn’t see that until that Sunday.
“I remember being at the chapel for the BMT folks, and they showed a video of the plane flying into the towers. It finally set in. This was real. We were at war.”
As a recruiter, Kelly has to deal with questions his recruiter never had to worry about, all because of what happened 10 years ago. Parents want to know how soon and how often their child is likely to deploy, and the chances of returning to them safely. He also sees a considerably different outlook in basic training, and not just the fact that today’s trainees face eight weeks of training, compared to the six-week period during Kelly’s time.
“There’s a lot more warrior ethos instilled in these kids, compared to even 10 years ago,” Kelly said. “It’s becoming real to these folks because they know they will deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan.
“So many people’s lives have been changed from that moment forward.”
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