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- (sigh) I'll never forget

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being at recruit training
when 9/11 occurred.

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We were all seated in a box
inside that Thunder Dome.

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And that's when the chaplain came out

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and delivered to us
the events of that day.

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The first thing he said,
was, you know, recruits,

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please understand this is
going to affect most of you.

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(somber music)

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- I was a recruit at MCRD San Diego.

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Our drill instructor told us
to circle it up around him,

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and he took his cover off

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and started talking to
us in his regular voice.

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- It was very ironic because
we got to the squad bay

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and everybody got on line,
did what we typically do,

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and one of the drill instructors came out,

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calm, cool, collected, nothing
that we'd seen like that

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in the past two months
of recruit training,

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said recruits, go ahead,
pull out your foot lockers,

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go ahead and take a
seat, write letters home,

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and you can talk quietly
amongst yourselves.

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- I remember looking around at the platoon

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and everyone was kind of
looking around at each other,

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trying to figure out what
was about to come next.

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- And we all thought this was a test.

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We thought, you know,
they're messing with us.

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Something's gonna come from this.

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- And he told us that the United States

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was under attack on the East Coast,

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and that we might wanna pay attention

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to what we were learning here today

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because we may need it again
sometime in the near future.

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You could almost feel the
breath taken out of the circle.

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We got no other information
other than that.

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Later on that evening our
company commander brought us

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all in and showed us video
clippings on VHS tapes.

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- [Reporter] We understand that a plane

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has crashed into the World Trade Center.

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We don't know anything more than that.

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We don't know if it was a-

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- As he was delivering
what happened that day,

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you could hear the sobs
and some outright crying

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from some of the recruits, and

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when he asked who here
has those family members

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that might work in those areas,

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I was taken aback by how many recruits

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actually raised their
hand, including my own.

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- Our path that we had initially joined

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was gonna be very different.

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When I joined it was peacetime

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and then all of a sudden
now we're in wartime.

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- I'll never forget making
that phone call to my mother,

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the fear in her voice knowing
of what the eventuality

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was gonna be for me, being
a United States Marine

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and now being at a time of war.

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That's, the shake in her voice

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is something that I'll never forget.

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(somber music)

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One of the first things I
did upon arrival back home

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was go to this little place
that I liked to go as a kid.

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It's called the Eagle Rock Reservation.

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I'll never forget driving up there

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and walking out to the pavilion

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that oversees the New York City skyline,

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and you look to the north
of the city and you see

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the Empire State Building
and the Chrysler Building,

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and you can make out the New Yorker,

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and then you look to the
south and it's just barren.

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Just seeing the gravity of
the situation that happened,

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that those two dominating towers

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with all those innocent lives that fell.

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It took me aback, and as
the sun set behind me,

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I remember looking at the city,

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and as those searchlights went on

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and seeing them just light up the sky,

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it sold me that I would be
in this for the duration.

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As long as the Marine Corps would have me,

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that I was in this until the end.

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(somber music)