0550 Tuesday 11 September 2001
Fairchild Air Force Base
Spokane, Washington
Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.
—NAPOLEON HILL, AUTHOR OF PERSONAL SUCCESS LITERATURE
America has stood down enemies before and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day.
—PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, IN HIS SPEECH AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER RUBBLE
Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.
—TODD BEAMER, GIVING THE SIGNAL TO TAKE UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT 93 BACK FROM THE AL QAEDA HIJACKERS
Sunlight was just creeping through our bedroom windows when the phone rang next to Val at 0550 Tuesday 11 September. Travis, barely a month old, slept between us. Val picked up the phone, and in a groggy state I heard a family friend, Staci, screaming, “WHERE IS MARK?! WHERE IS MARK?! WHERE IS MARK?!”
Val told her I was asleep right next to her, since it was 0550 in the morning and we had a new baby in the house, hint, hint. I overheard Staci telling Val to wake me up and turn on Fox News. I rolled over and grabbed the remote off the nightstand and pointed it at the TV. I’m a news junkie, so Fox News was already dialed in. Staci told Val a plane hit a building in New York City. Fox News commentators confirmed that an airliner hit Tower One of the World Trade Center Complex at 0846 eastern time, four minutes earlier. In the military, we call this “the CNN Effect.” In less than five minutes, a big global event will show up on cable news because of how networked the world is. We even plan for the CNN Effect in many operations. I watched the building burn, but too many things didn’t add up in my head. A large fire was consuming several floors near the top. It was a CAVU day in pilot language—clear and visibility unlimited.
How could an airline pilot with thousands of flight hours hit a building in broad daylight?
There were no flight routes near the Towers. The Fox News commentators just kept saying a plane had hit the World Trade Center.
My subconscious brain screamed attack, but I couldn’t believe it. Who would be so bold?
As I sat in bed, I thin-sliced through the images on TV. Airliners could be precision-guided weapons in the right hands, delivery vehicles for explosive content. Was this an attack? Middle East terror groups like Hamas or Hezbollah must have been involved. What was that group and their leader’s name again . . . something Laden? Thoughts bounced around in my head like a golf ball in a tiled bathroom. Gut feelings screamed attack in the six inches between my ears. But I couldn’t wrap my head around it. America did not get attacked like that.
A second airliner appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the TV screen, nose pointing toward Tower Two. My cognitive functions stopped as I focused on the jetliner’s flight path. It was like I was at a stoplight with the gearshift in neutral. The plane disappeared behind Tower One, and a massive fireball exited Tower Two’s north side. Val gasped, her left hand over her mouth.
The military portion of my brain shifted into gear immediately and shoved the pedal through the floorboards. I bolted from bed, waking Travis, and headed for the shower.
We are under attack!
I was watching my generation’s Pearl Harbor on cable news.
THE US IS NOW A NO-FLY ZONE, JUST LIKE OVER IRAQ!
All of this went through my head as I shed my clothes in the twenty feet from bed to shower. I just wanted to shave and wash my hair, because I knew I might not be home for a couple of days. Val walked in three minutes later saying the wing command post had just called. I had been recalled, and needed to go in immediately. I stepped out of the shower and looked at the clock: 0613.
Val had laid a clean flight suit on the bed and put my boots on the floor. She then asked, “Silly question: When do you think you’ll be home?”
As I stood to zip up my flight suit, Fox News showed PANTA flight, two F-15Cs from Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, zip across New York City’s skyline. Eagles were on patrol over New York City; HUNTRESS controlled all East Coast airspace. Good. Nothing would get by the Eagles, so New York City was safe. What was happening on the West Coast? Light Grays burn eight thousand pounds per hour in their patrol stations, and two thousand pounds per minute fighting in afterburner. Would the Eagles punch off external wing fuel tanks to chase airliners? A four-ship of Eagles needed eighteen tanker sorties over twenty-four hours—twenty-two if they were shooting missiles, because then the external fuel tanks would be punched off. Eagles would have five to six patrol stations down the West Coast. Worst case, 132 tanker sorties every twenty-four hours. I needed to call WADS and get Soup, a WADS controller and Weapons School graduate, on a secure line. How would his BIGFOOT agency manage tankers? Would Tinker Air Force Base send an E-3 AWACS to McChord or Mountain Home? AWACS needed gas every five hours, so five more tankers . . . 137 sorties. Most important, what were the rules of engagement for killing a US airliner over the United States? Who approved that engagement? I could not wrap my brain around killing a US airliner over the States. Wayno, the other 92nd Air Refueling Wing CES grad, was on the road. I was a one-man show. I needed to talk to Wybo, the wing scheduler, to see what we could do.
“Hon, I have no idea. Tonight, tomorrow, maybe Friday . . . Gotta go. I love you!”
In the twenty-five minutes from our driveway on the North Hill to Fairchild’s front gate, I crunched tanker math in my head. Another thought came to me: many of my Air Force friends were now airline pilots. Where were Pee Wee and Slider with Delta? Where in the world were Shredder, Flounder, and Zoid with American? I hoped Shredder was on air defense alert in his Fresno, California, Guard Viper. My thirst for information was almost unbearable, and I wanted my assumptions to immediately become fact. Spokane’s law enforcement roamed the highways, all kitted out as I drove along I-90 and Route 2 through Airway Heights. When I arrived at the front gate, a mile-long line of cars was waiting to pass through one lane. It took me forty minutes to get on base, and as I walked into Fairchild’s command post, the second situation briefing was projected on the screen. CNN and Fox News were on mute on flat-screen TVs. A briefer said US airspace was closed, all air traffic was grounded, and airliners were landing everywhere outside the continental US. Military aircraft were the only thing flying. Good—there would be a clear field of fire for any fighters shooting missiles at airliners.
What was I saying?
Wybo was already in and working on a plan. He and I immediately started a mission analysis exercise. I told him my numbers. He said they were a good start, but nobody would move until they saw requirements from AMC. Both of us agreed that tankers and refueling were critical. A no-fly zone of this scale could not happen without a strong tanker plan. None of our grads were at NORAD. Fairchild aircrews must have been in crew rest then. If I were commander in chief of NORAD, what would we defend? The big West Coast population centers were obvious targets. Wybo pointed to the Seattle/Tacoma area on our map. BIGFOOT was at McChord Air Force Base south of SEATAC, a very busy airport. Well, not busy anymore. Moving south to Portland, an F-15 Guard unit sat on the ramp. Passing Mount Shasta, San Francisco was the next big population center—big targets downtown and a famous Bob Marley–sized bridge. Fresno Vipers probably covered San Francisco International. I hoped Shredder was at home and not flying an American Airlines trip.
“Nuts; we need to add Hornets out of Lemoore to the mix.”
Drogue sorties. Six to eight thousand pounds every twenty-five to thirty minutes for Hornets. Hornets were the critical fuel-factor aircraft, just like they were in carrier air wing operations. I needed to know how many drogues Fairchild had available. Wybo was already working the no-fly zone tanker plan. None of us had any direction and were doing a lot of this on the fly without authorization from wing leadership or the TACC. Wybo coordinated two refueling areas with Canadian Air Traffic Control, bringing CF-18 Hornets back to their home station of Canadian Forces Base Comox from an exercise at CFB Cold Lake in Alberta. STAMPEDE, just west of Calgary, moved the CF-18s westward on their first hookup for gas. ORCA, off Vancouver Island’s west coast, allowed Comox Hornets to launch to the tanker in minutes. Wybo worked his planning magic on the phone through his network of people, solving complex and time-critical refueling problems with folks he had met and talked with around the water cooler. When it’s crunch time in war, you always go to the guys and gals you talked with at the water cooler. Wybo’s relationships saved us valuable resources and time on 9/11.
Farther down the California coast was LA—a big population center with lots of traffic. Fresno Vipers sat alert at March Air Reserve Base in San Bernardino. The last major city on the coast was San Diego. I wrote down the mileage between each airport. The biggest problem was building and coordinating refueling airspace with the FAA and BIGFOOT. I wanted a fluid refueling system, able to move anywhere whenever the tankers were asked to do so, but I also wanted to give the fighters a clear field of fire. I looked for alternate airfields. Fortunately, there were a bunch. San Diego was the only issue; Naval Air Station North Island’s 7,500-foot runway was too short. KC-135s require eight thousand feet, so I told everyone to use North Island only as a last resort.
KC-135s would be on alert like in the old SAC days by this afternoon. What condition was the Fairchild Alert Facility in? Boom and drogue spares had to be part of every schedule. 9/11’s tanker bill was huge—140 sorties transferring eighty thousand pounds each equals 11.2 million pounds of jet fuel, and that was just for the West Coast. I built a phantom list of specified, implied, and essential tasks to develop the West Coast refueling system. I still couldn’t believe what I was doing.
The defense of the West Coast was getting off to a frustratingly slow start. Everyone waited for AMC to tell us what to do. I didn’t blame wing leadership—it was an AMC cultural and institutional mind-set that caused us to ramp up so slowly. I wasn’t at Kadena; over there, my commanders, Brigadier General Cliver and Bigs, would have had two tankers on Bravo Patio with 180,000-pound fuel loads and ammo folks hanging the air-to-air missiles on four F-15 Eagles fifteen minutes after the second airliner hit. Different command, different employment philosophy. TACC told us what to do only after they received requirements. I knew TACC felt the same frustration as the requirements slowly trickled in. Seattle and San Francisco must have had air patrols overhead by then. Had anyone thought to launch tankers? I realized tanking was a pickup game at that point. Wybo was leaning way forward in building a flying and alert schedule, but he and I could lean only so far without requirements. My frustration level was pretty high; some important basic things could be done then, but AMC wouldn’t turn a fan blade without requirements.
Wybo already had twelve crews in crew rest at base billeting when the requirements finally came in. Fairchild’s first mission was . . . Montana. A crucial FEMA team needed a ride back to Washington, DC, from Bozeman. Two days later, while I sat on alert, the aircraft commander told me it was the creepiest mission he’d ever flown. Lots of radio chatter with air traffic control typically fills our ears as aircraft talk back and forth to ATC while flying across the US. He told me there wasn’t a word on the radio during his flight across the country. Chicago Center told them they were the only aircraft flying in their sector. Two F-16s from Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Michigan joined on their wings south of Chicago for some gas, but that was it. After landing at Andrews AFB, the crew waited for another assignment. They came home the next day after refueling fighters over DC.
Additional missions finally started coming in. Refueling sorties for the Seattle CAPs came first. A sortie orbiting south of Portland came next. Strip alert lines started coming in, and Wybo used crews already on the day’s flying schedule to fill them. Fairchild’s old Cold War–era alert facility needed cleaning, but the phones still worked. By the end of the night, seven KC-135s sat in the old SAC Nuclear Alert Facility. Twelve tankers had been on alert around the US when American Airlines Flight 11 hit Tower One; over one hundred tankers sat at alert nationwide by Tuesday evening. Tuesday afternoon started feeling more like air defense exercises at Kadena: air refueling made easy by launching fighters and tankers as packages. Keep fighters on the nipple until they committed to attack. BIGFOOT or the fighters would tell us where to relocate based on the tactical situation. My job got easier as the day grew longer. Additional fighter CAPs entered the system Wednesday morning. Hornets from Lemoore and Comox appeared on the schedule. Drogues now hung off the booms of several tankers on Fairchild’s Alert Facility Christmas tree.
Some crews asked what was a good bingo, the name for a comfortable fuel reserve that indicated to pilots it was time to return to base. I told every crew to calculate three bingos: first bingo for returning to Fairchild and sleeping in your own bed. Second bingo for getting an aircrew to McChord AFB south of Seattle or Travis AFB near San Francisco. Third bingo for any eight-thousand-foot runway with a control tower and a fixed-base operator, or FBO, to fill the tanker back up with gas. Each tanker carried a fuel credit card in the crew entry door or the maintenance forms that fuel specialists used to pay the bill. Then call command post with a cell phone number after landing. I knew BIGFOOT or AWACS at some point would keep a tanker up past the Fairchild bingo.
I finally pulled up in my driveway late Wednesday morning, tired and scheduled for alert Thursday afternoon. The US no-fly zone and defense of our airspace became Operation Noble Eagle on 14 September. None of us had ever imagined having to defend US airspace from attack.
Between pulling alert and planning Noble Eagle missions, my crew prepared for our Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, deployment. The evenings at home were very emotional in the aftermath of seeing thousands of lives lost in Manhattan, Washington, DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I held month-old Travis one night in a rocking chair next to our bedroom window. I was going to miss a good portion of the first few years of his life. Rocking Travis to sleep, I pondered being deployed over the next year or more. Tears ran down my checks as I sang to him asleep. Within the week, three CES grads—Dewey, Rubber, and Staples—received orders to deploy. Dewey hopped on the rotator out of Baltimore for Prince Sultan Air Base’s CAOC. Rubber and Staples headed to Florida, assigned to AFNORTH and the 601st Air Operations Center at Tyndall AFB. Rubber and Staples’ first task at Tyndall? Create Noble Eagle’s air refueling system across the US, which they did with the utmost expertise and class.
The events of 9/11 were my generation’s Pearl Harbor. I don’t say that to offend World War II veterans, because I know there was a difference. I do feel that the Greatest Generation and my generation fought for the same values, against very similar enemy ideologies. A foreign adversary was trying to destroy everything we valued in the United States and in our Constitution. It angered me. I was heartened to see people stand up to defend the values we hold dear in the United States. Numerous famous people left lucrative jobs to fight this horrific adversary—Pat Tillman being one of the most visible. Our oath of office states that the officeholder will “defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic.” Notice there is no time stamp on the oath.
The United States continues to be a land of promise for the world. I understand that it is not perfect, but whenever I came home from overseas, I knew it was the best place on earth. People come here because they know they can enjoy prosperity if they will just work hard toward the goals they set for themselves. Long before 9/11, I inserted a piece of paper into my wallet, and it’s still in there to this day. It is my personal Title of Liberty. I have written upon it to remember my God and religion, the freedom my family enjoys here in the US, and the peace afforded my wife and family as citizens of this great nation. Our Founding Fathers also sacrificed their time, talents, fortunes, and, in some cases, lives so there would be a place people could come and find freedom.