COLORADO SPRINGS — Retired Air Force Lt. General Mike Gould was the commander of the Cheyenne Mountain Operation Center on September 11th, 2001. He was headed to work inside the mountain in Colorado Springs when the first plane flew into the World Trade Center.
"I get into the command center and most of the news initially was coming off the television reports showing the smoke in downtown New York and the team was rallying to try to learn as much as they could," Gould said. "We knew pretty early that there was a coordinated attack and then, of course, when the second plane hit it became evident."
The daily mission for the 300-400 people working there was to provide warnings for any attacks.
"We had an air warning center, a missile warning center, and a space warning center," he said. "Our job was to, using a network of sensors around the globe whenever any event happened, advise the commander of NORAD, U.S. Space Command, and Air Force Space Command, which at the time was one person, General Ed Eberhart, advise him and the National Command Authority on what was happening and what, if any, actions we should be taking."
Gould said the five-acre complex inside Cheyenne Mountain was originally built in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. It is now known as Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station.
"We always envisioned, in the way of an air attack, Soviet bombers coming over the North Pole which is the closest way to get to North America," said Gould. "Our checklists were designed to respond to an attack like that and this was not that type of an attack."
As they opened up a direct phone line to the Federal Aviation Adminstration, Gould said General Eberhart made the decision to ground all flights. At the same time, they knew they had to get fighter aircraft heading to the hijacked planes.
"Part of our mission there at NORAD was to activate these alert aircraft and get them airborne and start to look for who else is maybe going to do this," Gould said. "It was my recommendation to the Commander, General Eberhart, and we were able to scramble alert aircraft on the east coast."
The team also started looking west to the Pacific for any other possible threats. Gould said they had their eyes on one plane the FAA could not reach that departed Seattle headed for Denver.
"We thought perhaps this guy is headed for (Cheyenne) Mountain," Gould said. "We ran our checklist for that and, you've probably been in there and you've seen this three foot thick door, well, for the first time for an actual event, we ordered the doors closed thinking that will provide some sort of protection for those of us in the mountain who needed to continue the mission."
Eventually the pilot responded and was diverted.
The lessons learned that day would eventually be passed on the cadets he oversaw as the Superintendent of the Air Force Academy from 2009 to 2013.
When asked what he wants the USAFA cadets to know about that day, Gould gave an emotional response.
"I didn't really have to remind them," Gould said. "The ten year anniversary in 2011 was right in the middle of my time as Superintendent and Don Addy, local hero, had procured steel beams from the World Trade Center...one of them was at the Air Force Academy, and we dedicated that on 9/11 2011. The cadet wing commander was a young lady. She was ten years old when 9/11 occurred and she gave a really moving and meaningful account of why she signed up to serve."
Those cadets are now being trained to replace the leaders of today who have, like Gould, dedicated their careers to defending our nation.
"We're really proud of some work that's gone on over the past seven, eight and nine years at the Academy to establish an Institute for Future Conflict where the entire curriculum and all the activities they do in their military training and academics is focused on emerging technologies, whether it's artificial intelligence, hypersonics, quantum computing. These types of technologies are going to be our weapons of war in the future."
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