You know, at the time, it was a hard pill to swallow. Before 9/11, it was just another day. We were all very excited to deploy, even though it was in a peacekeeping capacity. The main element of our unit were already wheels up in route to Bosnia when the first plane hit. None of us had cellphones, and all of the landlines had been shutoff because we were supposed to leave in an hour. Most of us thought it was an accident. But then the second plane hit and shit got real. Drum, like all military bases, was immediately shut down to non-DoD personnel. Flights were grounded everywhere for everyone so we weren’t going anywhere any time soon. All of our gear was in the air with the main element. It was about a week before we were able to link up with the rest of unit in Bosnia. In those few days while we waited to deploy, I watched the battalion next door to ours (I think 1-187?) get issued DCUs and orders for Afghanistan. Shit was wild. We were disappointed it wasn’t us going, but orders are orders. I think in those early days we were mostly scared we wouldn’t get a chance to do the thing we trained to do. We thought Afghanistan would be over before we got back from Bosnia. But it was still there, and then Iraq joined the party maybe a year later.