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Video Transcript

Sunday, before 9/11, we actually had a drill with all the area fire departments, police departments and the FBI on a terrorist attack.

So on Sunday we were all together going through an exercise of a terrorist attack. And then on Tuesday we actually had a real attack.

That day started, I was conducting training for all the area fire departments. So we were all together at the D.C. fire academy when events started on 9/11.

I was actually in the middle of teaching the class and one of the firefighters stopped the class and said, "Hey, I just got a page from my wife and a plane hit the World Trade Center in New York."

I stopped at my house to get all of my go-bags, all my deployment bags, thinking I'm going to new York for weeks. Who knows when we're coming back.

So I stopped. I grabbed my bags. And when I got back into my FBI cruiser; we monitor the local police frequencies here, and I heard a local D.C. police unit come in and say they had a priority message, which means it's an urgent, which means all communication stops.

It usually means an officer is in distress.

So, I can remember it very clearly. The dispatch came back and said, "Go ahead with your priority."

And the cop said, "I don't know what just happened, but I just saw the Pentagon explode."

There's no question it's the defining moment in my career and really in my adult life.

I pass it every day going home.

Every September 11, I usually don't like to work. I'd rather stay home and just have a nice day.

But every year I do the 9/11 run. It's become like a reunion of everybody that worked there. So that's kind of a fun thing to see everybody again. I do that every year.

But, you know, you still think about it all the time.

And every time we roll out to another event, it's "Is this another 9/11? Is this...how bad is this one going to be?"