Everybody knows or quickly learns about September 11th. I would bet everyone remembers where they were on that day. Where were you and what were you doing on that fateful day? I was stationed in Germany coming back into the shop with a couple of co-workers when someone came running out into the bay to let us know what was all over T.V. We couldn’t believe our ears and I’m sure a couple of us thought this guy was pulling our legs. That kind of stuff happened a lot.

The next thing we knew, we were being put on lockdown meaning no leaving base if you lived on base and had to be authorized to leave and come back on base and enduring 12 hours shifts with no time off until further notice putting barriers up around all near-by bases and doing special jobs. Having to get authorization was a pain in the rear. It took about two weeks for the memo to go out and hit the gates for the SPs (Security Police) to know “It’s the Dirtboyz. Let them through.” Can’t really mistake us. We were in tractor trailers and front end loaders.

Before 9-11 happened it was a straight shot to the gates for someone driving onto base. Afterwards, part of fortifing the bases, we had to put in the zig-zag, the barriers that made a driver slow down and zig one and zag the next. I remember one guy being fairly new to the base and didn’t really know the area wrecking a tractor trailer hauling a load of concrete barriers. He was okay, but I can’t say that for the tractor trailer. The area he had to travel through was hilly and curvy which didn’t help any. After a month or so, I was one of the lucky ones that had to help the SP’s out augmenting for them doing checks at checkpoints and patroling areas around base. By then most, if not all of the barriers were in place.