I have a question from the scenario. In it the President ordered the inactive to report for duty, ie the retired. So, my fellow preppers and eyes open individuals, if you are retired, like me, would you report in? I already know what I would do.
September 11, 2001 at 6am local, I boarded a commercial flight in Stockholm Sweden bound for JFK airport. At the time I was Stationed in Egypt and on vacation- visited Denmark, Norway and Sweden, then going to visit my parents in Pennsylvania. About halfway through the flight, somewhere over Greenland, the plane turned around and headed home. The pilot did not tell us what happened, only that we had to go back. At this time, I did not know what was going on and really couldn't do anything. I guess it was because I am very aware of my surroundings, and having spent 8 months in Egypt, that I did notice several arabs on the plane.
At the airport, we were removed from the plane and put in some kind of room. I did notice all the arabs were gone right away. It was a few minutes later that we found out what happened. The airport handed out a small supply bag, t shirt laundry powder, hygiene kit, stuff like that and shipped us to a hotel. My travel bag is a backpack and I always have a small stash of airport compliant equipment in it. but I did get a map, some water and travelling food. I called my base and told them where I was, though I made sure to do it late at night in case I was told to go back. I then called the embassy to let them know who and where I was and got their address.
For the next several days, they let us stay at the hotel, fed us and gave us travel passes to the city- there were 8 Americans stranded with me. Obviously, by now no anarchy was happening and I wasn't being recalled. I didn't own a cell phone at the time. I called the Air Force base in Germany and found out they were still flying back and forth to the States while everything was still grounded going to the States. I called SAS airline and had my ticked switched to Frankfurt Germany, which they did free of charge. The next day I flew to Frankfurt, found some fellow military members and got a ride to the base. I put my name on the wait list to fly back and found a day room to crash in, as long as I was out by 6am. 2 days later was on a flight to New Jersey. I called my parents to let them know where I was and they agreed to pick me up. My parents didn't have cell phones either.
The hardest part, was figuring out where my parents were, as my dad would not allow his car to be searched, he would have been armed. I had to bum a ride to the main gate and luckily they were there.
With the gear I had and bought I felt comfortable I could reach something American if I had to while I was in Sweden. For protection, obviously I wasn't going to get a weapon. I already had a good folding lock blade- stowed in my checked baggage, which we did get back, and this was when you could still fly with a swiss army knife in your pocket. I did take a trip to the city and purchased a strong kitchen knife and found out where the hotel kept its mops.
After a few days with my parents- survivalists from the cold war era, seeing things move back to normal, I took another military flight back to Frankfurt, caught a commercial flight back to Egypt and finished my tour.
Afterwards I was stationed in Colorado, and then the fun began.
