I was a Navy Hospital Corpsman in the active reserves in San Diego, CA. on Sept. 11, 2001. Prior to that I served a rather uneventful six years on active duty. My annual two weeks of active duty started on Monday, Sept. 10th the next day I headed into work thinking it was just another Tuesday, the closer I got to the base I began to notice that there was an unusual amount of traffic, but still didn’t think much of it, after all it’s San Diego I thought. Being 3 hours behind New York, at around 0700, when we were heading in to work, everything on the East Coast had already happened, and back then I never watched or listened to the news in the morning. As I approached the front gate to get on base, I noticed the increase in security, there were Marines, lots of them, some had military dogs that were circling the cars ahead of me, checking them as they entered the base. It finally hit me that something was wrong, usually the front gate was manned by Sailors who provided security not Marines. When it was my turn to approach the gate, I asked the Marine Lance Corporal what was going on and he said, “Ma’am, haven’t you heard the Pentagon has been hit, we are at war.” If I live to be 100 years old, I will never forget that statement. I looked at him in disbelief, and said, “With who?” and he just said, “Ma’am you need to move a long, I don’t have time to answer any questions.” I parked my car and went into the medical clinic where I was assigned to work that day, there was a television in the waiting room of the clinic that everyone was standing around. I watched the news and saw the Twin Towers get hit by the planes, and the Pentagon smoldering. I thought, Oh my God! He’s right, our country is under attack and we are at war! I continued to serve in support of Operations Nobel Eagle and Enduring Freedom until June 2003.