 I grew up in Northern California, specifically Los Altos, California, which is in the Silicon Valley. Starting in high school, I wanted to become a Marine because it may be a cliche, but I saw the commercial with the chess board. And when I was a kid, I just said, I want to do that. So, being a Marine from a young age, I wanted to feel like I would make a difference in the world. So I came to college here in San Diego and then I've been stationed here, mostly stationed here ever since. I started college in 1997 here in San Diego. I went to the Officer Candidate School in Quantico in 2000 and then I was commissioned in May of 2001. I checked into the basic school in Quantico in July of 2001 and then graduated in February of 2002. So, in the morning of September 11th, I was at the basic school and we were doing a module where all of the squads break out into different rooms just because of the class that we were getting. And I was in the Hawkins Room. For anybody that's been to the basic school, you know it as the Hawk. So it's the sports bar that's in the barracks. Now it's part of the chow hall, but then it was part of the barracks that I lived in. And just because of space, all the squads were broken out into different rooms and we ended up in the Hawkins Room. And it's a typical sports bar with the TVs and whatnot and we were getting our class on how to write a combat order. And our SBC, who is our Staff Platoon Commander, she had her back to the area where the TVs were. And we were in a horseshoe with our, you know, with our classic note taking gear and our student guide. And we're getting our class. In the middle of the class, we have some of the other TVS staff. They start coming into the room and they're behind our SBC. And they started turning on the TVs. And as they turn, they're turning on the TVs, you know, we're doing this to them. We're kind of like looking over like, hey, it's a boring class. So we're looking over and we see the first tower burning. The North Tower is smoking. And then one of the lieutenants of my squad, Lieutenant Clooney, she goes something like, ma'am, I don't mean to interrupt, but you might want to turn around and see what's been going on behind you. And just as Captain Bars turns around, we're watching it. We see the second plane slam right into the South Tower. And even to this day, I mean, I get chills thinking about it right now, because that was one of those moments that we were young and we're dumb and we're motivated. But it's one of those things where we knew right away, like this just got real. Like we're getting a class on combat orders and we're watching this happen. Instinctually, we knew something was happening that would forever change our lives because of where we were in our progression. We were the demographic that went to MOS school and hit the fleet right at the cusp of all of the OIF and OEF deployments that started and we grew up deploying and deploying and deploying. And when I saw them, our admin business especially hit home for me because I recall my experience. I recall recent experiences, recent events that are going on. And I have a daughter that also wants to be a Marine, a Marine officer. And she just started her school. So I think to myself, four years time, could she end up where I ended up? You can edit this, right? I think about my daughter and she's a freshman in college and in four years time, could she be going to the same countries I went to and having to deal with the same experiences I did? It was a surreal moment. There's moments in life, probably when you have your first child, your first child comes out, you have a surreal moment where it's like, wow, I'm a parent. That was one of those tight moments. And it's probably the closest one I can think of that most people can relate to. But you have one of those kind of out of body experiences where you're like, that just happened. Yeah, that really happened. And it's mostly because with the exception of maybe World War II, with the Japanese Commonwealth, the world had not experienced something to that magnitude. And it was the towers of 9-11 and then it was the Pentagon and then it was wherever the fourth plane was going to go, before it hit the ground in Pennsylvania, a coordinated kamikaze-like event across the eastern United States. It was surreal because it's nothing that the world has seen yet and hopefully won't see again. I still believe all that work was the right thing to do and none of it was done in vain. Like all storms, these tumultuous times in the Marine Corps and in the country, like all storms these two shall pass and the institution of the Marine Corps will do the right thing and will survive. And I say, the Marine Corps and the services writ large, all the services. I grew up in Northern California, specifically Los Altos, California, which is in the Silicon Valley. Starting in high school, I wanted to become a Marine because it may be a cliche, but I saw the commercial with the chessboard and when I was a kid, I just said, I want to do that. So being a Marine from a young age, I wanted to feel like I would make a difference in the world. So I came to college here in San Diego and then been stationed here, mostly stationed here ever since. I started college in 1997 here in San Diego. I went to the officer candidate school in Quantico in 2000 and then I was commissioned in May of 2001. I checked into the basic school in Quantico in July of 2001 and then graduated in February of 2000. So in the morning of September 11th, I was at the basic school and we were doing a module where all of the squads break out into different rooms just because of the class that we were getting. And I was in the Hawkins room. For anybody that's been to the basic school, you know it as the Hawk. So it's the sports bar that's in the barracks. Now it's part of the chow hall, but then it was part of the barracks that I lived in. And just because of space, all the squads were broken out into different rooms and we ended up in the Hawkins room. And it's typical sports bar with the TVs and whatnot. And we were getting our class on how to write a combat order. And our SBC, who is our staff platoon commander, she had her back to the area where the TVs were. And we were in a horseshoe with our, you know, with our classic note taking gear and our student guide. And we're getting our class. In the middle of the class, we have some of the other TBS staff. They start coming into the room and they're behind our SBC. And they started turning on the TVs. And as they're turning on the TVs, you know, we're doing this now. We're kind of like looking over like, hey, because, you know, it's a boring class. So we're looking over and we see the first tower burning. The north tower is smoking. And then one of the lieutenants of my squad, Lieutenant Clooney, she goes, she goes something like, ma'am, I don't mean to interrupt, but you might want to turn around and see what's going on behind you. And just as Captain Bars turns around, we're watching it. We see the second plane slam right into the south tower. And even to this day, I mean, I get chills thinking about it right now because that was one of those moments that we were young and we're dumb and we're motivated. But it's one of those things where we knew right away, like, this just got real. Like we're getting a class on combat orders and we're watching this happen. Instinctually, we knew something was happening that would forever change our lives because of where we were in our progression. We were the demographic that went to MOS school and hit the fleet right at the cusp of all of the OIF and OEF deployments when they started. And we grew up deploying and deploying and deploying. And when I saw the Mar-Admin, this especially hit home for me because I recall my experience, I recall recent experiences, recent events that are going on. And I have a daughter that also wants to be a Marine, a Marine officer. And she just started her school. So I think to myself, four years time, could she end up where I ended up? Excuse me. You can edit this, right? I think about my daughter and she's a freshman in college and in four years time, could she be going to the same countries I went to and having to deal with the same experiences I did? It was a surreal moment. There's moments in life probably when you have your first child and your first child comes out, you have a surreal moment where it's like, wow, I'm a parent. That was one of those tight moments. And it's probably the closest one I can think of that most people can relate to. But you have one of those kind of out of body experiences where you're like, that just happened. Yeah, that really happened. And it's mostly because, with the exception of maybe World War II with the Japanese kamikaze, the world had not experienced something to that magnitude. And it was the towers of 9-11 and then it was the Pentagon and then it was wherever the fourth plane was going to go before it hit the ground in Pennsylvania. A coordinated kamikaze-like event across the eastern United States. It was surreal because it's nothing that the world has seen yet and hopefully won't see again. I still believe all that work was the right thing to do and none of it was done in vain. Like all storms, these tumultuous times in the Marine Corps and in the country, like all storms, these two shall pass and the institution of the Marine Corps will do the right thing and will survive. And I say, the Marine Corps and the services writ large. All the services.