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News | Sept. 6, 2021

DLA Aviation employees remember 9/11: Richard Bullock

DLA Aviation Public Affairs Office

In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation Public Affairs Office is running a week-long series Sept 6-10 telling the stories of DLA Aviation employees who remember where they were and what they were doing that fateful day.

Name:  Richard Bullock

Organization:  DLA Aviation Richmond, Virginia

What is your job title, and what do you do, specifically? I’m a procurement analyst within the Procurement Process Support Directorate. I work on the contracting operational support team assisting the acquisition workforce with procurement issues and analyzing procurement issues and trends for senior management.

Please tell where you were and what you were doing on Sept. 11, 2001. On that day, I was a field service representative for a medical equipment manufacturer and was 150 miles away from my wife and two small children, doing service work at the Veterans Administration hospital in Durham, North Carolina. When the first plane hit the World Trade Center, I was in a hotel room getting ready for work with the TV on in the background. When the first news alerts came on, I thought it was part of a TV show. It took a couple of minutes for it to register that this was actually happening. 

What can we do to ensure future generations never forget that fateful day? The attacks on 9/11 were a wake-up call for the United States and the world. Technological advancements over the last 30- years have brought the world closer together but also allowed extremist to spread their philosophies around the world.  The Department of Homeland Security was established after 9/11 to ensure that we are as safe as possible.  However, we have discovered that safety sometimes comes at the cost of personal freedoms. Our biggest struggle today is deciding as a nation where to draw the lines between safety and freedom. The attacks on 9/11 will remain in our collective memory just as other significant battles such as Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, the Arden, Normandy, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, the Chosin Reservoir, the Tet Offensive, and Desert Storm are all reminders of battles we have fought for freedom.   We won’t forget.