Base personnel pause to remember 9/11

  • Published
  • By Mark Wyatt
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  Members of the Hanscom community and local leaders gathered here today at the POW/MIA Monument to remember the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Scott Anderson, assistant director for operations at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, and a retired Navy officer, was the ceremony’s guest speaker.

“Like many of you I am sure, I remember clearly where I was as the events we are recognizing today unfolded 15 years ago,” said Anderson. He was, at the time, an active duty Navy commander working on a classified program in Texas.

Anderson noted that the program’s headquarters were located in Crystal City, Virginia, very close to the Pentagon.

“The first priority was to establish communications lines to each of our sites and begin to conduct a muster of the roughly 1,000 program personnel,” he said.

He discussed his concern for colleagues because a regularly-scheduled science community meeting that program personnel would attend was to take place that week on the west coast.

“Recall that the terrorists selected cross-country flights to hijack due to the full fuel loads at takeoff,” he said, noting all four aircraft had California destinations. “The program travel itineraries were rolling in.”

Five program team members were on aircraft used by the terrorists. Carl “Max” Hammand worked as a researcher for MITRE in Bedford, Massachusetts. Four others, Charles Droz, Leonard Taylor, John Sammartino and Bill Caswell, worked at the Crystal City headquarters.

“All were brilliant researchers immensely dedicated to national security with decades of experience,” he said. “The chief scientist was so uniquely qualified that, to this day, a suitable replacement has not been found.”

He went on to discuss the impact their loss had on the program in the coming days and weeks.

“After a period of grieving, the program began to emerge with a new resolve. Every individual was invested with a new commitment to success,” Anderson said.

He said that, over the next year, program plans were changed and accelerated to address this emergent national security threat. The entire program united organizationally across the military, government and industry entities, as well as across the research, budgeting, security, engineering and testing communities.

That commitment resulted in the program receiving a Defense Acquisition Executive Award.

“It was a just tribute to the five program team members that had lost their lives on the fateful day we recognize today,” he said. “My objective is to make a lifetime of mission success the true legacy of this tragic event.”

Included as part of the ceremony was a wreath laying at the park’s monument by Col. Roman L. Hund, installation commander, Hanscom Command Chief Master Sgt. Patricia A. Hickey and Anderson.

Attendees also recited the Pledge of Allegiance and closed by singing God Bless America.

“We will never forget what happened, but the lasting legacy of 9/11 is a safer, stronger and more resilient America,” said Bobby Jacques, the program’s narrator.