One cousin joined the Navy in Aug 2001. 6 weeks boot camp, and then shipped off to Bahrain. That, he was able to tell us. 10 years in the navy, mostly spent "over there" (and that's all he could tell us). Another cousin was supposed to be in the area of the Pentagon that was targeted on 9-11. He got a call to go elsewhere, and wasn't at the Pentagon that day. We found out about that incident two days later. A friend who came back for another friend's wedding this past Aug had seen a couple of his squad killed in Afghanistan 2 days prior to his leave. In great detail, he told us the story of the assualt (to my surprise).
To say that I'm a little emotional right now would be a massive understatement.