September 11th 2001 I was overseas on a Joint Readiness Exercise. Not being in country I was a spectator to the events. As the news broke I was keenly aware of the NCOs around me who "got it" and the ones that did not. There were a few NCOs that thought that the day was business as usual, but most of us realized that the world forever changed. As the unit slowly redeployed the focus was of eminent combat. We knew that this war would be a war of Special Operations and being in the preeminent Special Operations Unit we also knew that whatever the U.S. response that we would be involved.

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