Story by Eric Durr August 31, 2021 at 09:05AM New York, NY--Twenty years ago, New York Air National Guard Technical Sgt. Jeremy Powell was the first member of the United States military to realize Sept. 11, 2001 was not going to be an ordinary fall day. Powell was a full-time Air Guardsman assigned to the Northeast Air Defense Sector in Rome, New York. The unit's mission was to control the air defense of the northern United States east of the Mississippi. At 8:37 a.m. Powell, who was then a senior radar technician, took a call from a Federal Aviation Administration controller in Boston informing him an airliner may have been hijacked and that the FAA needed a fighter jet to get a visual on the plane. NEADs commanders called the 102nd Fighter Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard and directed them to get two F-15s airborne. At 8:46 a.m. American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. By the end of Sept. 11, 2001 4,265 members of the New York Army and Air National Guard were on state active duty to respond to the attacks. This was in addition to 2,000 Active Duty Guard Soldiers and Airmen who at work that day. New York Army National Guard Soldiers did not wait for the usual phone call alerting them to report to their unit for a state emergency mission. They saw what was happening on TV, put on their uniforms, and reported to the armory. "The New York Army National Guard was magnificent," said retired Air National Guard Maj. Gen. Thomas Maguire, who was then serving as the Adjutant General. "The Soldiers went to the sound of the guns." When the sun set on Sept. 11, 2001 there were 1,500 New York Army National Guard Soldiers on duty in lower Manhattan assisting the police and fire departments and another 1,500-mostly from units of the 42nd Infantry Division-were on hand to assist on Sept. 12.
