Blain Burgess said he was so shaken up, he couldn’t go home. So he found himself at Whitesburg Baptist Church in Huntsville, Alabama.
“I had just gotten to work on that Tuesday morning and was walking toward my office … when someone said, ‘A plane hit one of the World Trade Center towers,” he said.
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As an employee of the Army at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, he was told to shelter in place, then later to go home and scatter.
“We had no idea how many more attacks may have been planned and where they might occur,” Burgess said. “I was so shaken that I couldn’t go home, so I went to Whitesburg Baptist Church for refuge and solace. I watched more TV coverage from there and then eventually went home, still quite shaken.”
Several days later, he was told to report back to work.
“My house was five minutes from work on a normal day, but some days it took 45 minutes or so to get there because of the vehicle checks,” he said. “At one point, I was almost fired upon in my car, because I had to be stopped and in park to remotely open the hood and trunk for inspection, and the guard did not allow me to communicate that fact.”
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Tensions were very high, Burgess said.
“I really wasn’t sure of the extent of what might be needed after that either, as a GS-13 equivalent, had I been called up, I would have been a Major, if needed,” he said. “As it was, as an Army Research Scientist and Engineer, I just needed to stay at work and do my job to make sure that our Armed Forces had the equipment and weapons needed to take the battle forward to the enemy.”
He said it’s hard to believe it has been 25 years. “I have since retired and am pursuing civilian life now.”
