Question for those who served in 2001 prior to 9/11 (Army, AFR, Navy)
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I've never been in the military, but there's something that's been sticking with me for years and I wanted to ask if anyone knew anything about it. Here's the story.
Around June 2001, I took a road trip with my roommate (I'm going to purposely leave out where I was living and where we were going). When we were out hiking, we met a soldier, and if I remember correctly, he was in the army and I think he was a sergeant. We chatted for a while and we all hit it off, and agreed to come visit us in our city when he came down the following week.
We went out to eat and he told us that he was going to be shipped off the Middle East soon. We asked why, and he wouldn't tell us, but he said something big was going to happen soon. No matter how hard we tried, he wouldn't/couldn't give us any details.
I suspect, but I'm not sure, that he was alluding to an invasion of Iraq, but I don't know. I knew there were some plans to invade prior to 9/11, but it's hard to get concrete evidence.
When 9/11 happened, I sort of forgot about the conversation we had had with the guy, but over the last few years it's made me think. I'm not a 9/11 conspiracy theorist or anything, but I have to wonder what "big" event he was talking about.
I've never been in the military, but there's something that's been sticking with me for years and I wanted to ask if anyone knew anything about it. Here's the story.
Around June 2001, I took a road trip with my roommate (I'm going to purposely leave out where I was living and where we were going). When we were out hiking, we met a soldier, and if I remember correctly, he was in the army and I think he was a sergeant. We chatted for a while and we all hit it off, and agreed to come visit us in our city when he came down the following week.
We went out to eat and he told us that he was going to be shipped off the Middle East soon. We asked why, and he wouldn't tell us, but he said something big was going to happen soon. No matter how hard we tried, he wouldn't/couldn't give us any details.
I suspect, but I'm not sure, that he was alluding to an invasion of Iraq, but I don't know. I knew there were some plans to invade prior to 9/11, but it's hard to get concrete evidence.
When 9/11 happened, I sort of forgot about the conversation we had had with the guy, but over the last few years it's made me think. I'm not a 9/11 conspiracy theorist or anything, but I have to wonder what "big" event he was talking about.
Would any of you know?
You knew this how exactly?
The invasion of Iraq didn't occur until March of 2003, so unless "soon" to you meant 21 months later . . . you get my drift.
Moving on, the US was undoubtedly conducting classified special operations in the Middle East during that time. Remember that the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen 8 months prior to that. I can guarantee you that the US wasn't sitting idly by and waiting for Yemeni officials to see that justice was done.
If this guy was actually a soldier, I'd wager he was special forces.
We were constantly being told that we were going to Iraq, all through the late 90s into 2000. You met some guy who was trying to make himself seem important.
If we are talking about Middle East in June of 2001, that most likely would’ve been Operation Southern Watch or Operation Northern Watch. If he was in the US Army, perhaps assigned to a Patriot Missile unit? Hard to know exactly. Especially if he was in SOF, there really is no telling what he was going to be doing out there.
But if you are trying to imply, or find out if some military people knew beforehand of 9/11, I have absolutely zero evidence of that. I was stationed at Osan Air Base, Korea during 9/11 and it happened completely out of the blue as far as I can tell. There was zero preparation going on, and nobody got an advanced warning that something was about to go down. We immediately went into Delta and 24 hour work centers.
I have also talked to a lot of people over the years, hundreds of people, mostly USAF, and I haven’t come across a single guy who had any type of advanced warning about 9/11. I’ve also talked to people who were physically inside the Pentagon on that day, too. They’ve all said to a man that a plane really hit the building.
Look, I fully understand that there have been nefarious things going on throughout our history as a country, and I’ll also readily admit that when you do a deep dive into 9/11, there are some strange anomalies that make you really wonder what the heck really happened.
But for me, since I was immersed in the USAF, knew people who were there at point blank range, it makes me trust the official account. I can fully understand civilians questioning some of that record, though.
I retired in June 2001. My last Duty Station was Naples Italy working as an MP. While there I was drawn into the mess in Kosovo.
Beginning around 1998 the Intell community was seeing a lot of traffic chatter about a planned attack. The tempo steadily increased into 2001. We all knew there was some anticipated attack, but we had no idea where or what it was going to look like. Our physical security folks were doing assessments of all NATO assets and figuring out how to harden them. We mostly assumed that another barracks was going to be bombed.
We had a lot of experts that came in to review the Naples USO, as it had been bombed in 1988, trying to assess if it was sufficiently hardened.
I put in my papers to retire 6 months early, and everything was approved without any issues. However when it got close, they instituted the Stop Loss program, and other MPs were being held on Active Duty beyond their projected release dates. Because we were so frantically trying to prepare for the coming attack. I remember being concerned that I might be Stop Lossed. But due to how early I had submitted my papers, my retirement was not delayed.
After my retirement ceremony, we returned stateside. Once stateside I had to report to a base for one week for that office to review and finalize my DD-214. The personnelmen who did that work were joking about it, because everyone else who was scheduled to be retiring was being Stop Lossed, I was the only retiree they were allowed to process.
I retired in June 2001. My last Duty Station was Naples Italy working as an MP. While there I was drawn into the mess in Kosovo.
Beginning around 1998 the Intell community was seeing a lot of traffic chatter about a planned attack. The tempo steadily increased into 2001. We all knew there was some anticipated attack, but we had no idea where or what it was going to look like. Our physical security folks were doing assessments of all NATO assets and figuring out how to harden them. We mostly assumed that another barracks was going to be bombed.
We had a lot of experts that came in to review the Naples USO, as it had been bombed in 1988, trying to assess if it was sufficiently hardened.
I put in my papers to retire 6 months early, and everything was approved without any issues. However when it got close, they instituted the Stop Loss program, and other MPs were being held on Active Duty beyond their projected release dates. Because we were so frantically trying to prepare for the coming attack. I remember being concerned that I might be Stop Lossed. But due to how early I had submitted my papers, my retirement was not delayed.
After my retirement ceremony, we returned stateside. Once stateside I had to report to a base for one week for that office to review and finalize my DD-214. The personnelmen who did that work were joking about it, because everyone else who was scheduled to be retiring was being Stop Lossed, I was the only retiree they were allowed to process.
Different rules for different services I guess? I don’t recall anyone in the USAF being stop lossed until 2003 or so. I had an old supervisor of mine who was stationed at Hickam, of all places, and he was denied retirement when he dropped his retirement papers. He then had to deploy for 3 months ( I know, 3 months is ridiculous, but that’s what the USAF was doing back then, as opposed to now, which is either 180 or 365), but he was eventually allowed to retire in 2004.
As far as preparing for attacks, back in June 2001, I was stationed at Yokota Air Base, Japan, and unless I’m missing some of my memory, there was literally nothing going on that summer. Anyway, I got to Osan about 7 days before 9/11, and again, nothing going on. Just the normal focus on nK.
My husband was at AF HQ (the pentagon) assigned to the office that sourced and purchased weapons (conventional) for the AF. Due to Operation Northern Watch and Kosovo there was a depletion of weapons (conventional) in the AF. Upon his arrival in the unit they had "no money" to acquire more. Weapons had been replenished in Europe after Kosovo (husband had been working on this while stationed in Europe from 1996-2001) and everything was just settling down from the replenishment activities in the summer of 2001. In other words, we were in draw down mode vs preparing for war.
I've never been in the military, but there's something that's been sticking with me for years and I wanted to ask if anyone knew anything about it. Here's the story.
Around June 2001, I took a road trip with my roommate (I'm going to purposely leave out where I was living and where we were going). When we were out hiking, we met a soldier, and if I remember correctly, he was in the army and I think he was a sergeant. We chatted for a while and we all hit it off, and agreed to come visit us in our city when he came down the following week.
We went out to eat and he told us that he was going to be shipped off the Middle East soon. We asked why, and he wouldn't tell us, but he said something big was going to happen soon. No matter how hard we tried, he wouldn't/couldn't give us any details.
I suspect, but I'm not sure, that he was alluding to an invasion of Iraq, but I don't know. I knew there were some plans to invade prior to 9/11, but it's hard to get concrete evidence.
When 9/11 happened, I sort of forgot about the conversation we had had with the guy, but over the last few years it's made me think. I'm not a 9/11 conspiracy theorist or anything, but I have to wonder what "big" event he was talking about.
Would any of you know?
It could have been a soldier (thankfully) practicing good OpSec. You just met the guy, right? The middle east has been an active deployment spot for U.S. military for a long time.
I was active duty and stationed in Bahrain in 1988-1989 to the ASU in Manama. It was a running, but sadly accurate joke, that the most accurate source of U.S. Navy ship scheduling info in and out of BASREC could be had from the Filipina hotel bar tenders in Manama. Sailors with a drink or two in them will tell pretty girls way too much.
I've never been in the military, but there's something that's been sticking with me for years and I wanted to ask if anyone knew anything about it. Here's the story.
Around June 2001, I took a road trip with my roommate (I'm going to purposely leave out where I was living and where we were going). When we were out hiking, we met a soldier, and if I remember correctly, he was in the army and I think he was a sergeant. We chatted for a while and we all hit it off, and agreed to come visit us in our city when he came down the following week.
We went out to eat and he told us that he was going to be shipped off the Middle East soon. We asked why, and he wouldn't tell us, but he said something big was going to happen soon. No matter how hard we tried, he wouldn't/couldn't give us any details.
I suspect, but I'm not sure, that he was alluding to an invasion of Iraq, but I don't know. I knew there were some plans to invade prior to 9/11, but it's hard to get concrete evidence.
When 9/11 happened, I sort of forgot about the conversation we had had with the guy, but over the last few years it's made me think. I'm not a 9/11 conspiracy theorist or anything, but I have to wonder what "big" event he was talking about.
Would any of you know?
As you have been told by a lot here in one way or another. Iraq through the 80's and 90's Sadam was a concern. His war against Iran kept us from doing much about him until we decided that his continued rule of Iraq worked against our "GWOT" Global War On Terror. I say it that way because it is the premice we used in attacking in 2003.
9/11 brought us first to Afghanistan in search of a man named Bin Laden.
My husband was at AF HQ (the pentagon) assigned to the office that sourced and purchased weapons (conventional) for the AF. Due to Operation Northern Watch and Kosovo there was a depletion of weapons (conventional) in the AF. Upon his arrival in the unit they had "no money" to acquire more. Weapons had been replenished in Europe after Kosovo (husband had been working on this while stationed in Europe from 1996-2001) and everything was just settling down from the replenishment activities in the summer of 2001. In other words, we were in draw down mode vs preparing for war.
Osama was quickly accused as the lead. Then U.S. bombed Sudan pharmaceutical factory.
Then in late 2000, the USS Cole was bombed, again likely Osama.
Then in early 2001, the UN started sanctions against Taliban for not turning Osama over for trial (yes, the same Taliban that now run Afghanistan after Biden’s decision to abandon country).
Taliban continued erasing historical and cultural symbols along with mass killings in Afghanistan. Taliban timeline in 2001 was continued fighting, destroying Buddhist statues, requiring non Muslims to wear identification and kidnapping aid workers, some U.S. Busy year.
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