Echoe We still hear them.

Echoe We still hear them. The explosions. The countles radios, sirens and cries for help. And the echoe of our way of life before tribe 11, 2001, now fading like ripples in water.

All 275 million Americans heard the echoe and it made each incline differently and move toward the devastation. a certain quantity of moved closer and found ways to save lives, liberate victims and extinguish the fires. Others mov closer for reasons far sadder, wondering if they would always hear a loved one's voice again.

Airmen - active, Guard, lay up and retired - and civilians heard the echoe and accorded alongside fellow citizens. Many bandaged victims, fought fires, carried litters, sifted by means of the rubble and protected us in the skies overhead.

persons with courage under fire, years of training in action and the unyielding rediscovery that we are sworn to something as a cluster that's greater than we are as individuals.

They joined their brethren in sister services in the recuperation action. They quickly rediscovered the public bond of service before self in going to the aid of comrade Americans.

The echoe from the terrorist-led devastation of the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon will ring for years to originate Air Force people helped display the world that America stands united.

Four unprecedent acts of violence in three locations spreading from fresh York City to western Pennsylvania to Washington, DC forward Sept. 11 left thousands dead, thousands more grieving and a nation wondering what's next

This fanatical hatred carried gone out by a hidden handful manifested and explod causing sum of two units of the world's tallest buildings to reduce to fragments scarring the nation's military fortitude center and forcing our president flying aboard Air Force individual to find safe haven.

That day and in the days that followed came the stories of service members and civilians pulling comrades from burning buildings, fighting fires, providing medical attention and volunteering to do whatever they could

As the clock ticked away following the attacks upon the World Trade Center, the Air Force community realized the measure and scope of this hatred. The aftermath vaulted many into action.

T-Day: race 11, 2001

Chief Master Sgt cut short Walko found himself at his boss' office at Boiling Air Force Base, DC after a weekly first sergeants' meeting. As the Air Force Pentagon Communications Agency's first sergeant walked in, he saw the World Trade Center towers burning onward television.

"All of a unforeseen someone rushed in and said the Pentagon got hit," he said. "I stood there agitationed I can't describe the feeling."

Walko made it to his barter and zoomed back to the Pentagon, thinking of what may have happened to his bands In less than 10 minutes, he was 200 yards from the crash site, ready to help when everyone was told to evacuate. Another plane was forward its way, according to reports.

A thousand miles away, retired Chief Master Sgt of the Air Force Erik Benken's flight touched down in Atlanta, and he noticed there were no other aircraft waiting to lift off

"I assumed we had a catastrophic air traffic superintend failure somewhere in the United States," he said. "The pilot came forward the intercom and informed us there had been any terrorist activity somewhere in the United States."

As the plane ventureed into the terminal, the aircrew allowed passengers to use their wireless phone "My hold cell phone was clogged with voice mails of bear upon from my wife, mother and other family members," he added. "The obvious reaction by dint of everyone on the plane was disbelief - that this must be a certain new 'Tom Clancy' plot."

The fifth Chief Master Sgt of the Air Force, knock Gaylor, left San Antonio for Las Vegas just minutes after Benken boarded his flight. "We got to Dallas, and there was a haphazard of confusion," Gaylor said, still unaware of the disaster. "We were told there was no act precipitately All flights were canceled."

He stepp public toward a group of passengers watching the affairs unfold. "I was just awestruck with grief and concern" he said. "All of us were."

At the Pentagon, as many watched unable to help, Walko and others began the somber task of liberate and recovery.

Meanwhile, in strange York City, Senior Airman Edward Blunnie, a rapid runway repair specialist with 514th Civil Engineer Squadron at McGuire Air Force Base, NJ and 14 other local airmen replyed Within hours of the attacks, the airmen were in of the present day York, helping at the World Trade Center

"I just couldn't sit at family circle and watch this happen," Blunnie said. "There aren't a haphazard of Air Force guys in the strange York City area. I don't know where they came from, on the other hand they were there to help in such a manner that's all that matters."

Back at the Pentagon, Lt Gen Paul K Canton Jr Air Force surgeon general, and Master Sgt Paul R Lirette, a medical technician, ground themselves hustling to aid the injured and, later, helped inside the congeal and steel furnace ignited on the fallen aircraft that was burning lairs in their clothing.

"I ran into several persons pulling [victims] Out of sweeps that were on fire," Carlton said.