On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was preparing to teach Physics to the seniors at Bishop Hafey High School. At the time, I was a member of the Army Reserve in a unit based in Pittsburgh, PA. As classes were changing, a student came in and said "A plane crashed into the World Trade Center." We turned on the classroom TV. Just as we switched to a news channel, the second plane crashed into the second tower. Watching this, I remarked to the students in the room "Well, I'm going to be going someplace nasty in the near future." It was that clear to me. I received an alert phone call from our unit's command structure to stand by for further orders. We continued to watch as the towers fell and then reports came in showing a plane had crashed into the Pentagon followed by the reports of Flight 93. In a little over a year, soldiers from my unit would be going to Afghanistan to support the mission there. The majority of my unit and I would be heading to Kuwait to prepare for our eventual invasion of Iraq. That day was a seismic shift in my life and would be the impetus for changes in myself and the country that I still see to this day. Never forget.