The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, began like most others did for Dr. Paul Mlakar, who was serving at the time as technical director for force projection for the Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC).
On that particular Tuesday, Mlakar was working out of a hotel room near the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he had traveled for a seminar that took place the day before. As he sat in his room preparing for a 9 a.m. EST conference call, an unsettling news report came across his muted TV—the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 had struck the north Twin Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.