Like many young men, Frank Parze was unsure of what to do with his future and had no exact path, he decided to join the military just 5 months before the September 11 attacks. He talks about the impact that it has had on his everyday life and the way that it has changed his perspective in life. Given all that he has been through I decided to ask him what made him join the military in the first place.

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FP-   Initially it was boredom, to be honest with you. Majority of the time its not a decision that you really just do, it’s just I was home one day, thought about it and decided to go to the map station a week later and I singed up. Two weeks later I was gone.

How did it feel when you knew that you were in it for the long run?

FP-  Initially you don’t get scared about stuff like that, when you make a conscious decision you kind of already accept it for what it is. You don’t really hit, it doesn’t really actually hit you till you’re there, but I am a pretty mellow dude so by the time I got there it really was already sunken in. So it was intersting beginning. Ha! To say the least.

Now we just had the twelth anniversary for the September 11 attacks what do you remember about that day?

FP- I remember the day very clearly actually because it was something nobody expected to happen and uh I just remember coming home from PT, it was about 7:30 am I got a few phone calls from my parents. I’d say a few, probably about twenty and I called them back after I had breakfast. They just told me to turn on the news and I saw exaclty what happened. I got a couple of more phone calls from my platoon sargent and it was all “wrap todays schedule and meet us at the auditorium.” They had to brief us on everything  and stuff. It was all kind off surreal when it first begun but it just created a s&*^ storm after that, you know long day after that.

Where were you stationed?

FP-  Fort Carson Colordado