Editor’s Note: This is one of the stories that appeared in The Daily World’s special section honoring military veterans. The section appeared in Saturday’s Daily World.
Grayland’s Matt Reichenberger remembers where he was on the morning of September 11, 2001.
“I was down on the island of Exuma in the Bahamas doing counter-drug operations with the DEA,” said Reichenberger, an Army helicopter mechanic and crew member who served from 1998-2005. “We would fly the DEA out to catch boats that were hollowed out and filled with drugs. They had big motors on them to go as fast as they could.”
Though they had an important joint operation to complete involving the DEA, Coast Guard and Army personnel, all parties were on high alert on 9/11, waiting for their orders and readying to react at a moment’s notice.
“Our small flight-line was gated and secured, so we pulled back from our hooches and stayed in the operations center to figure out what was going on,” said Reichenberger, who graduated from Ocosta High School in 1998. “We drew our weapons and waited to see what we needed to do next. … We kind of had to wait and see what our home base in Savannah (Georgia) wanted us to do. We were so far away from everything and everything was done by satellite phone, so we needed to know what was really going on because all we could see was the news. Until we heard it from our (commanding officers) we wouldn’t know what the real situation was and where we needed to go.”
Upon completing a successful anti-drug trafficking operation in the Bahamas, Reichenberger was sent back to Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah and then did some training in Death Valley, California, before heading out to Kuwait as part of an advanced party ahead of Operation Shock and Awe.
“We went to Doha, Kuwait for a three-month rotation six months before everybody else showed up,” he said. “We got all the pilots and aircraft ready to go and six months later, everybody else showed up.”
Reichenberger took part in several early operations during the coalition forces’ invasion of Iraq, including taking control of Baghdad International Airport in 2003.
“When we were getting ready to go through the Karbala Gap, we had to wait for the SCUDS and Tomahawks (missiles) to go back and forth for awhile before we drove through that narrow section,” he said of his experience in the operation. “We just sat in the Humvee and watched the fireworks for a little while. We lost maybe one or two Blackhawks and then we drove through and linked back up as we drove into Baghdad International Airport and took that over.”
Reichenberger recalled the sights of the war-torn airport as coalition forces took over the airstrip.
“C130s (aircraft) were doing touch-and-go’s with Rangers dropping out the back without stopping. Planes were on fire on the flight-line. You could tell tanks had just rolled through. … It was kind of a mess.”
But Reichenberger added that the soldiers on the operation had to remain aware of their surroundings rather than rubber-necking.
“You had to be kind of mindful of where you were standing because you could get shot,” he said, offering that though the enemy had been pushed back and their armor had been destroyed, friendly forces were still taking small-arms fire. “The opposition was outside the airport, but they were still shooting in.”
Reichenberger worked as an Aircraft Structures Repairman, mostly on Blackhawk helicopters but also on Chinooks and Apaches while in the Army. He was also a certified helicopter weapons systems expert and ended his service with the rank of sergeant.
“Being in aviation, you pretty much know everybody else,” he said of the closeness he has with those he served with. “My average detachment was less than 20 people. If we weren’t working to get something done, we were probably doing something we shouldn’t be. Everybody you knew, it was like you knew each other for a long time because you spent all your time together.”
After his service ended, Reichenberger continued his work on helicopters as a government contractor before heading back
