WASHINGTON — The terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, trumpeted a call to service for many.
Among them, 17-year-old twins in Florida who were contemplating life after high school.
And for a senior at the United States Military Academy at West Point, watching the attack in New York City on television stirred an immediate and urgent sense of duty.
The Bengtson brothers
Identical twins Christian and Ivan Bengtson were at their high school in Seminole, Florida, when they watched on television as the second passenger jet slammed into the World Trade Center.
“Everybody was quiet, just watching and trying to comprehend … what was going on,” Christian said.
Classrooms were eerily quiet except for the muffled sound of people crying, he said. He felt something big was happening, something that would change the lives of many high school seniors sitting in class that morning.
“Before 9/11 we were visited by recruiters in the school,” Ivan recalled. “We were exploring opportunities, and we were interested in Special Forces.”
The Army recruiter told them a Soldier had to serve five years before attempting to join the elite group.
With such guidance the boys shelved that plan.
They were both athletes and musicians, and they made good grades. They kept talking with the recruiter but also explored going to college in Florida.
Then the Army rules changed after the 9/11 attacks. The recruiter said the pair could join specifically with the intent to join Special Forces.
The recruiter asked if that was still an option. The brothers said it definitely was. They wanted assurance they would be sent to Afghanistan.
Today, the Bengtson brothers are 40 years old with families and professional lives, Ivan as a supervisory management analyst with the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington, D.C., and Christian as a family physician back home in Seminole.
Back in 2001, they were high school seniors committed to going into the Army together.
Their parents – dad is from Sweden, mom from Guatemala - were not excited about their plans for service.
“They were definitely not thrilled,” Ivan remembers.
The parents were hesitant about the boys joining the Army during a time of war, Ivan said, but that’s exactly what the twins sought. In the end, the parents came on board and supported their sons’ choice.
Though still only 17, in March 2002 the brothers joined the Army.
“We were always in the same class from first grade all the way ‘til we graduated high school. It's always nice when you have somebody there and you can help each other out,” Christian said.
The Army was no different. They were together in basic training, Airborne School and the Special Forces Qualification Course.
The Bengtson brothers, both staff sergeants at the time, served on Special Forces teams in Afghanistan in 2004, 2005, and then at different times in 2006 and 2007.
“It’s still shocking, and it's still overwhelming. I found it very rewarding,” Christian said.
He said he learned about himself and about how important it was to work closely with others in challenging environments.
“You have to have each other's backs at all times,” he said.
“If I look myself back at myself at 17, would I do it again? I probably would say yes. The experiences that we had there were quite invaluable. Some of those experiences kind of helped shape the person I am today,” Christian said.
Ivan agreed.
“I think the military probably is one of the best leadership programs,” he said.
He said he learned about accountability and how the best units work together and teach each other.
Neither man has talked with his children much about their time in service, but they talk with them about caring about their neighbors. The brothers say that’s what is important.
Ivan said military service showed him that humans succeed only through collaboration and through community.
Christian said he feels those are valuable lessons for his children, as well, and he wants them to be open to adversity and challenges in life.
“My experience … in Afghanistan led us to be very adaptable in an austere environment. With very limited resources we had to figure it out. And so, you learn those skills, and they are very easily applicable to anything you do afterwards, right?”
The West Point cadet
You can find Lt. Col. Andrea Peters working hard every day as the battalion commander for the 2-315th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 174th Infantry Brigade at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey.
Peters has her doctorate in industrial engineering with a focus in human factors. She also served as an instructor at West Point.
However, on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, she was a senior at the academy, busy preparing for her next class.
She glanced up at a television to see a jet hitting one of the Twin Towers.
“At first, I thought it was a movie, and then I started looking a little bit more and I saw the news banner on the TV, and I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness, what just happened?’” she said.
“I think my jaw dropped. My heart dropped. I went through multiple emotions in a very short timeframe. … I was pissed off, because I'm like, how dare they do that on American soil?”
Peters had entered West Point because she wanted to honor her infantryman father and the other men in her family who had served in prior years.
“I was in awe of my dad. Not that he ever pushed me to the military or to the Army specifically, but seeing him, and seeing how he led, was the reason I applied to West Point, and a lot of the reason why I stayed there as well,” she said.
Deep down, Peters said she had wanted to be a drill sergeant and a command sergeant major, because those are two things that her father never got a chance to do.
“ I struggled with my commitment to the officer corps,” she said, but in her junior year at West Point she committed to a future as an Army officer.
After graduation and duty in South Korea, she geared up for deployment to a combat zone.
She said she stayed busy ensuring that American warfighters in Iraq and Afghanistan were getting the things that they needed and the protective materials to succeed in their missions.
“9/11 gave me a true sense of duty, a true reason to be a part of the military and to fight for something that matters,” she said.
“9/11 emboldened me. 9/11 energized me to continue to serve. And some of the reasons why I continue to serve now is because of that formative timeframe in my life. Not all of us can say that we had a defining [moment] like 9/11,” she said.
“A lot of Soldiers who are in my formation today have never deployed, have never been in a different country or in a war zone. And so, me continuing to serve is me giving back to this country and to the Army. I’m helping to shape, mold, mentor and coach the next generation of leaders, so whenever that next conflict does come, they're ready for it,” Peters said.
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