CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- Ten years ago Wednesday, horror struck Chattanooga as a terrorist killed five service members.
These were four U-S Marines; Sgt. Carson Holmquist, Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, Lance Corporal Skip Wells, and Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, along with Naval Second Class Officer Randall Smith.
Tributes lay at the site of where Chattanooga’s worst nightmare began on July 16, 2015.
Authorities say Muhammad Abdulaeez began his attack at the Armed Forces Career Center on Lee Highway at 10:30 that morning.
He fired up to 45 rounds from a rented vehicle.
No one was killed at that location.
Then he proceeded to the Naval Reserve Center on Amnicola Highway.
Retired Naval Commander Tim White was working at the center on that day, and had a strange dream before coming in.
He said, “In that dream I was talking to a man who was holding a weapon, with a group of men behind him holding a weapon.”
Lt. Commander White said the dream highlighted rising anxieties he had about the threat of terrorism against military institutions.
He said, “We were very vulnerable to attack, and I was concerned about that vulnerability to the point I was bringing a weapon to work that if we did come under attack, to try to defend my people.”
Lt. Commander White wasn’t allowed to have the weapon at the time of the shooting while at work, but that decision would prove necessary after a car crashed into the Reserve Center’s parking lot.
He recalled, “Pulled out my weapon, an extra magazine, and when I stood up with my weapon, the terrorist was on the sidewalk, running down the sidewalk, heading towards the entrance of our Reserve Center.”
Lt. Commander White noticed the suspect had an assault rifle and was wearing a bulletproof vest.
He described, “So I raised my weapon, shot at him as many times as quickly as I could, thinking he would drop from my rounds or turn around and start firing at me, and neither of those things happened. He just kept running down the sidewalk.”
Lt. Commander White says that bureaucratic concerns over having that weapon became insignificant.
He said, “When I pulled out that weapon, I thought, I’m definitely going to get fired for this, and probably going to go to jail, and when I saw the terrorist I thought, “I’m probably going to die during this attack.” So neither of those things really matter anymore.”
At that point, the suspect went through the building, first attacking the Naval side, then the Marines side, killing the Fallen Five.
Chattanooga Police showed up and killed Abdulaleez.
Lt. Commander White says as he met the officers, he felt helpless.
He said, “As I waited behind his vehicle for the next ten minutes, hearing him shoot inside of the building and outside of the building and actually shooting toward Officer O’Brien and me, it was the longest ten minutes of my life. Not knowing where Petty Officer Smith was or the other sailors, or where the Marines were, and just praying that they were safe.”
In the years following the terrorist attack, there have been many tributes to the Fallen Five across Chattanooga.
