My Float Tapes… Back in August of 2001 I was in the Marine Corps with Bravo Company 1/1 out of Camp Pendleton. I was a young Sergeant, a squad leader in a line company. I was set to head out on a Westpac (Western Pacific) deployment with the 15th MEU SOC (Marine Expeditionary Unit – Special Operations Capable). The plan was to make our way over to Djibouti, Eastern Africa, do some training and come home. Plans changed on September 11th.
I set out back then to create a Float Video, following my experience on that deployment. I had a little Sony HandyCam that used MiniDV tapes. Over the course of the next 6 months I captured about 19 hours of footage. Following myself from start to finish on that deployment.
When I returned I didn’t know where to start with all of the footage and was busy with life. The Float Tapes, 19 of them, got misplaced in the shuffle and lost until I finally found them about 18 years later. This will be the story of that deployment…
Part 6 picks up the night of September 11th, 2001. In another video of mine, Reflecting on September 11th, I talk about the events leading up to this video. How my friends and I found out about what had happened while in a bar out on liberty in Darwin, Australia.
This video is of immediately after that. We headed back to our hotel room and watch the twin towers fall over and over on the television. All the while trying to wrap our heads around what this will mean for us. The world has changed…
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