In their words: Young veterans talk about how 9/11 changed their lives

Oregonian - 9/9/2021

Alicha Smoot

I was 11 when 9/11 happened. I was just a kid. It’s hard to believe that I’m now the mother of two boys.

The attacks happened when my family was living in Coburg, a town near Eugene. We all watched it on television and saw it over and over. We had no idea that it would be a day that changed everything in my family’s life and then, later, in my own life.

At the time, my father earned a living as a long-haul truck driver. He worked for a small private company that had just a couple trucks. That made it possible for me to sometimes go on trips with him. I still remember this trip from Oregon to Oklahoma. We talked in the cab of that truck. We got so close.

That stopped soon after 9/11.

My father didn’t think the attacks were just something that happened across the country, far from Oregon. He believed what happened hurt the security of our county and made our family vulnerable. He wanted to do something. He thought his only choice was to use his truck-driving knowledge and go overseas to help the best way he could. He ended up getting a job for a contractor.

That big truck my father drove ended up being parked in front of our house. He never drove it again. I never went on a ride with him again. I saw that truck every day. My family was used to him being gone on the road, but this was different. We couldn’t talk with him because there was no way to communicate with my father once he left.

He was stationed in Baghdad. He drove a truck to transport refrigeration, food and equipment to soldiers. He was there for about eight months when the helicopter he was riding in crashed trying for a safe landing during a sandstorm. He was badly injured and went through 13 surgeries, four of them in Germany.

He was never able to properly walk again. When he finally came home, he was bedridden in a medical bed in our living room for 10 months. It was a crazy time. He told me that the only thing he remembered about the accident was the pain and blacking out from losing blood.

But he told me he remembered the military police with the Army that showed up right after the wreck to secure site. The unit always travels with a medic. They were assigned to protect the truck conveys. Those truckers put their lives in the hands of the soldiers. My father said the MP unit saved his life by treating him at the scene and then transporting him out of there.

When I heard that story, I decided that when I grew up, I wanted to be an MP in the Army.

I eventually went active duty in the Army and was an MP. My duty station was in South Korea and Hawaii. I did that for six years. Then I came back home to Oregon, back to Coburg. I work as a regulatory specialist with the OLCC, and I joined the Oregon National Guard, 1186 MP company. I led a team to the presidential inauguration, helped fight the Oregon 242 forest fire, and responded to protests.

My father was never in good health after that helicopter accident. From that day on, he never had a normal life. Because of the pain he was on opiates for so long. That caused drug abuse. He was on disability until he died last year. His name was Keith Junior Bowers. He was 59.

Before he died, my father told me he never regretted what happened to him or what he did. He said he only heroic thing he ever did in his life was to leave his family and try and help.

I didn’t join the Army because I didn’t have anything going on in my life and needed structure. I joined because of the story about the MP unit. I was driven by a passion to do something, just like my dad had done.

My parents feared me joining the Army. My mom tried talking me out of it. She said to remember that my father had only been overseas for eight months when he was hurt. My dad said he was scared for me. But he also told me he was proud of me. That meant everything to me.

On my desk at home, I have a photo album with all these pictures when he was over there.

I think about him every day.

Ian Newland

I grew up in a farm in Ohio. In the summer of 2001, I’d been working three jobs to save money to go to Ohio State University. I’d just turned 21 when 9/11 went down.

I watched the mass causalities over and over and over on the news. I didn’t know anyone directly affected, but seeing it made me think it was our Pearl Harbor again.

The attack gave me the opportunity to reflect on myself. I felt the call to arms that both grandfathers felt in World War Two. Every man in my family – grandfathers, dad, uncles and brothers – had served. In my generation there didn’t seem to be a need to serve. Up until 9/11, I was just a young guy with a plan to save money and go to college.

My older brother had served in Desert Storm as an Airborne Ranger. I called to tell him I was going to serve. He told me to follow in our family’s footsteps, join the Army and get to the front line.

I called a recruiter. He was super excited. He drove out to see me. I took all the tests and scored high. I’d studied hard in school and had good grades. He brought the paperwork to show me all the jobs I’d qualify for because of my scores. Pages of them. I told him my brother said I should do at least two years on the front line with the infantry, just like the rest of my family. The recruiter looked at me like I was crazy. I was golden gift for him. I didn’t get a bonus for signing on. Just a bus ticket to Fort Benning, Georgia.

After training, I joined a front line with a Special Forces identifier. If I excelled, I could eventually be a Green Beret or Airborne Ranger. I fell in love with it. I’m half Native American. I spent my whole life outside. That’s what the infantry does. They sleep in the mud and walk a lot. I thought it was great. Afghanistan was on the radar. I was excited to go kick the ass of the Taliban for what they did to this country.

Out of nowhere, overnight, we got orders to go to Iraq. It was a kickoff to what would be a decade-long war there. I was shipped to the Suni Triangle as a machine gunner for a frontline infantry unit. I ended up in some big gunfights. I did 16 months and had the opportunity to get out or reclassify to go the officer route. I decided to stay front line. I went to all the schools – Airborne, became a parachutist, qualified as a sniper, went to air assault school and was expert infantry. I was eventually promoted to a staff sergeant and was awarded staff sergeant of the year.

In 2006 things changed when 210 of us were hand-picked to be a front-line Special Forces infantry unit to be sent into the backyard of the bad guys to see how bad it was.

Two weeks after getting orders, we were in downtown Baghdad in the worst sector of all of Iraq. We were involved in some of the largest recorded firefights in history. Over the course of 18 months, 57 of us were killed in action, and twice that many wounded in action.

I was on patrol in northeast Baghdad when we were in a firefight. A guy up on a five-story rooftop dropped a large explosive hand grenade into our truck. I was in the seat behind the driver engaging the enemy out the window. The grenade landed in the middle of us. Our gunner yelled to warn us. When he realized we couldn’t hear him, he jumped on the grenade and saved all our lives

He died in my arms.

I lost the use of my left arm and leg, and part of the grenade hit my face. The whole left side of my body was paralyzed a while. I had a traumatic brain injury and an injury to my jaw

I was 27.

I came back home and was in a wheelchair off and on for about five years. I had to learn to walk again, using canes and crutches. I’d been an athlete. I was told I’d never run again, and I’d never be able to go to college. I got a business degree and then a culinary arts degree and became a chef. I got married and now live in the Portland area.

I began running, working my way up to marathons and then ultra-marathons. I get satisfied pushing my body to do what doctors said wasn’t possible. I try and be a role model. There are veterans out there who’ve been severely wounded and need to see that motivation from someone like me.

I got a Purple Heart

I’m a content guy.

I’m glad I served.

I’d do it again.

Salvador Trujillo-Lopez

I was about to turn 18 when 9/11 happened. I was living with my mother in Tigard. She told me to watch the TV. I’ll never forget that airplane hitting the building. It wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.

That sealed the deal for me. I started talking with a U.S. Army recruiter. I thought it would be great to do something for a country that or a country that did so much for me as an immigrant. My mother was from a little town in Mexico. She came to the United States when she was 17. I lived with my grandmother in Mexico for 10 years, from the time I was one, before my mother became a legal citizen and helped me get that status. I came to the United States in 1994. My mother wanted me to have more opportunities in this country.

Before I joined the Army, I talked it over with my wife. We had a kid, very young, just a few months old. Signing up for the Army was the easy part, but that didn’t make me a soldier. I took all the tests and went through all the schools. It wasn’t easy, but it was achievable. I was with an assault unit with the 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell in Kentucky.

I got deployed to Iraq in 2005, a tough year. This is when roadside bombs were starting to be used more. I was put in a unit that had been there for 16 months. They made me feel safe because they knew how to operate as a unit in a combat zone. I carried live rounds in my rifle and lived in a confined space. I knew that if I left that space, bad things could happen to me.

I was injured June 23, 2006.

I was a sergeant then. We were doing nighttime missions. We’d gone along that road hundreds of times. Sometimes we were attacked, sometimes we weren’t. That night was no different than any other mission except someone put in an IED in the road to do some damage.

I was a gunner in a Bradley fighting vehicle. We hit three anti-tank mines and two 155 rounds. When it went off. I didn’t hear anything. I felt a lot of heat and pressure. I was dazed and confused. Then I knew what had happened. I was in shock, but it was short lived.

The Bradley was on fire, and we had to get out of it. I could barely breathe. All the oxygen had been sucked out of the Bradley. My body was in flight or fight mode. We all started looking for way out. Lucky for us the hatches were open. Only way out for us was go to up.

Usually when we go up with our gear, we get stuck on a knob hatch or something. This day it was like someone was watching out over us. We climbed out of that hatch with no problem. There were five of us and one interpreter. We all got badly burned.

My skin from knees to my feet wasn’t burned. But 65 percent of my body was burned. I got a Purple Heart. I went through a lot of surgeries. They used some good skin I had left to patch up my severely burned spots.

I went from looking like a normal person to having my face burned. I still struggle with that to this day. It is something I will never get over. My wife and I live with our four kids in Tigard.

I want to look strong in front of them, so they can see that I’m not giving up on me and them. It’s tough. Having a burned face is a different type of injury. It’s physical and psychological. The psychological is a lot worse. This isn’t going to heal. This is me. I am 37. My face will look like this until the day I die.

We gave the Iraqi people living a life they could not have lived. I was a part of that change.

We fought the hard fight.

We did it with honor.

— Tom Hallman Jr; thallman@oregonian.com; 503-221-8224; @thallmanjr