I was at NAS Pensacola that day, for a seminar with other NR officer recruiters from my command. The previous day I had flown from Portland, Maine to Reagan National via commercial air, and then met most of my group at Andrews AFB where we boarded a C-20 flown by one of the Andrews VR squadrons for the flight to KNPA. Return home later in the week was supposed to be the reverse of that process.
At NAS Pensacola, we were staying in what was then brand-new visitors housing at NATTC. I was amazed at the new NATTC campus, as last time I was in Pensacola that whole area had still been Chevalier Field and NARF. On the morning of the 11th, my group of mostly non-aviation officers gathered in the lobby of the Q to get ready to take our vans over to NASC Building 633, where we were scheduled to convene that day at 0800 (0900 EDT) for our first meeting. There was a big screen TV in the lobby that was tuned to one of the network morning shows, and suddenly one of my colleagues pointed out that a plane had hit one of the WTC towers. Noticing the CAVU conditions, I said aloud to no one in particular that there was no way that was an accident. Several minutes later we were on the way to our meeting.
When we got to Building 633, I found a lounge on the first deck that had vending machines, and a TV mounted on the wall. There was a gaggle of API students gathered around, and it was then that I learned that the second WTC tower had been hit. For most of the rest of the morning, I was in an API classroom, watching ABC News on an overhead projector, along with several of my colleagues and various NASC staff. Later on, we were informed that NAS Pensacola had gone to an increased THREATCON. A station H-3 flew perimeter patrols around the base the rest of the day, the back gate was temporarily closed, and the line of cars trying to get through the front gate stretched across the bridge and down Navy Boulevard.
We watched the president’s speech that night while having dinner at McGuire’s. The place was very subdued. I don’t remember how much work we got done at our seminar, but probably not much. Everyone was worried about other stuff, including their families back home and how to get there. Our VR ride had obviously been retasked, and Pensacola Regional was shut down. Most of my group ended up getting one way rentals for a drive north, but several of us who had the longest distance to travel, myself included, held out for an airline flight. We had heard that flights would start up on Thursday, so we spent most of that afternoon and evening at Pensacola Regional, to no avail. I finally was lucky enough to get a seat on a flight on Friday.
I later learned that AW1 Joseph “Boats” Pycior, the Sensor 1 from my first deployment crew (VP-8, CAC 12), was killed in the CNO operations center at the Pentagon. Boats had just recently put in his retirement papers. He left a wife and two sons. John Works, a good college friend and fraternity brother, was a bond trader on the 89th floor of WTC tower two. He had quit his job in the WTC after the 1993 truck bombing, but had just recently returned. He left a wife and young daughter. RIP, Boats and JW.
