When Cole Azare joined the U.S. Navy on Sept. 11, 2000, he was fresh out of high school and looking for a way to pay for college. His plan was to serve in the military while raising enough money to study political science.
Exactly one year after his enlistment, Azare was working in a military office in Norfolk, Va., about 95 miles south of the state capital. He heard the news of the first plane hitting the north tower over the radio and froze.
“I thought it was a terrible accident,” Azare said. “After hearing the second one I still thought it was a terrible accident. It wasn’t until the Pentagon attack when the realization came that the world just changed.”
After the attacks, Azare said he knew his military career would veer in a direction he didn’t anticipate.
“It definitely kicked up that rampant patriotism,” he said. “… the kind that makes someone want to go back and make someone pay.”
He left for Iraq in January 2003 aboard the USS Boxer. Azare said his job during the mission was to assist in transporting troops. He returned twice, once in a non-war related deployment.
Read the full story at the Nevada Sagebrush.
Photo credit: U.S. Army Flickr Photostream
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