posted on Aug, 10 2010 @ 07:21 PM
Living in Seattle, it was really early for me when everything was taking place. I'd just came from the shower (community shower in Army barracks),
when a buddy called to me from his room to "come here!"
I walked into his room to see what was up, just seconds before the 2nd plane hit. As that fireball went up the tower, I said "Osama bin Laden. Bet."
My buddy and the other guy who was in his room said "what?", and I repeated "Osama bin Laden, that's who did it. Bet." Neither of them had ever
heard of him.
I'd learned of Osama in the aftermath of the attack on the USS Cole. As a 22-year-old at the time I was no news buff by any stretch of the
imagination, but for some reason on a Sunday afternoon a few months prior, I'd sat in my room drinking beer and watching all kinds of coverage on the
USS Cole. I remember thinking as I gazed at the hole in that boat "this is the beginning of something"... I was unfamiliar with embassy bombings,
other attacks, et cetera...didn't really care about that stuff much, but I remember being inexplicably interested in the USS Cole attack. Maybe it
was because I was a serviceman and so were the victims, I don't know, but I do remember a feeling that there would be more to come.
As we sat there watching those buildings smoke, I thought back to the USS Cole. I remember thinking "That really was the beginning, I wonder what's
next?"
In the coming weeks, my buddy asked me "how'd you know that was Osama bin Laden that morning?" I don't remember my answer to him, it was something
about watching the news....but in the years since, I've wondered the same thing myself. I mean, I called his name out immediately as the plane
exploded through the building. Why did I do that? As someone who very rarely watched or listened to the news, how did it work out that the one program
I watched was the one that brought that name into my head, and why did the name stick? Was the attack on the USS Cole a forerunner to set up bin Laden
to be the fall guy for 9/11? Did the news coverage of the attack on the Cole use the name Osama bin Laden an extraordinary amount of times to stick it
in the heads of all who'd watched? I don't remember, but I've thought about those questions more than once in the last few years.