I was at home enjoying my last day of a two-week leave period (vacation), sitting on the couch watching The History Channel.

My mother-in-law called and said to turn on the news, as a plane had hit the WTC.

I switched channels and watched for a few minutes before seeing the second plane hit.

WTF? Confusion. Denial. Can this be real?

Then later, the reports came in that the Pentagon had also been hit.

I left the house to go pick up my son at daycare; I didn't know what was going on, but I wanted us to all be together.

The duty officer called me at about 3pm and said to come into work.

I got home that night around 10pm.

Nine days later I was on the USS Shreveport for a regularly scheduled deployment.

By early December we had landed via C-17 at FOB Rhino in Afghanistan.

I was among the first conventional units that convoyed from FOB Rhino to Kandahar airport.