Deployment instructors: Sept. 11 attacks stay in their ‘soul’ for teaching

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol
  • 421st Combat Training Squadron
FORT DIX, N.J. (AFPN) --  On Sept. 11, 2001, instructors with the 421st Combat Training Squadron here were busy with another course preparing Airmen for worldwide deployments.

Before the day was done, they knew the work they were doing would have a significant impact.

“We had a Phoenix Readiness class on the ground,” said Tech. Sgt. Robert Falcon, a security forces instructor for the 421st. “I had 40 students going through the opposing forces course at the time, five of whom normally worked at the Pentagon. I know those students were worried about their comrades when the news came across (that) the Pentagon was hit by a plane.”

Tech. Sgt. Cary Page, an air transportation and air mobility operations instructor, was also here teaching a Phoenix Readiness course.

“We were on day two, getting ready to go to the live fire range,” Sergeant Page said. “Our students were in the classrooms getting some last-minute instruction and the commander summoned all of us who weren’t teaching that morning to his office. We stood there and watched the World Trade Center buildings burn on his TV, discussing what we were going to do with the 160-plus students we had.

“I also remember that when the first tower fell, the commander fell into his chair with tears in his eyes,” Sergeant Page said. “It was an emotional moment.”

Both Sergeants Falcon and Page said it was the commander’s decision to continue on with the class.

“He instructed us to get all our students armed up and out to the ranges,” Sergeant Page said. “He said, ‘Spread them out across Fort Dix, it will be safer for them until we figure out what to do.’

“We understood a lot of folks had family and friends in the areas of the attacks, so we gave the option not to participate to those students who felt they weren’t up to the task,” Sergeant Page said. “It was a tense time. I remember how hard it was to act as if nothing was going on so we wouldn’t make our students more nervous than they already were.”

“We had to press on,” Sergeant Falcon added. “For instance, those five students from the Pentagon who were here had a hard time getting a hold of anyone, so they continued on with the course that day. However, before the week was up, we stopped the course and students went back to their units and home bases.”

It was then up to the Airmen working on the base to begin setting up force protection measures around the installation. That measure, according to Sergeant Falcon, began immediately.

“One of the best displays of unit camaraderie I saw from that terrible day was watching our unit come together and set up and run the checkpoints on Fort Dix,” Sergeant Falcon said.

“For the days and months that followed, the unit continued to do amazing things like set up and conduct all the training for the detainee missions for Operation Enduring Freedom, train people for federal air marshal operations, and provide just-in-time training for a number of career fields. It really gave me a feeling that we were all working towards a common goal,” Sergeant Falcon said.

Even through these instructors encountered feelings of shock and disbelief that such a large-scale terrorist attack took place on American soil, they have continued on, student by student, teaching to the best of their ability ways combat the enemy in the global war on terrorism.

“The events changed my life in a dramatic way,” said Staff Sgt. Micah Small, a security forces instructor who was also supporting Fort Dix efforts after Sept. 11. “It opened my eyes to the possibilities of these kinds of events taking place. I was one of the individuals who believed we as Americans were invincible to these kinds of attacks.

“I feel (that we), as Americans and all my fellow instructors, not only remember that day, but we also have become more educated and aware of what is going on in the world around us, and we pass that on to our students with increased determination,” Sergeant Small said.

Sergeant Falcon said the thought of having a large-scale preplanned attack occur on U.S. soil before Sept. 11 was something in “sci-fi movies.”

“Now it is always in the back of peoples’ minds that it could happen again,” Sergeant Falcon said. “It definitely affected how we look at everyday protective measures and how we train people here to go out on a deployment and be prepared for terrorism.”