Native New Yorker Miguel Dominic watched in horror from his Pocatello office as the World Trade Center collapsed on live television following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack in his hometown.

Dominic, a now-retired U.S. Army corporal, was already enlisted in the military then and had been since 1986 when he turned 18. He was serving a civilian post at Convergys in Pocatello in 2001.

While he was thousands of miles from New York at the time of the attack, flashes of the 13 years he lived in the Bronx bombarded his mind as the terror unfolded.

“I just thought, ‘This is my hometown,’” he said. “It was emotional for me because I had been in those buildings before and I knew how many people would probably be in there and the amount of people who would lose their lives.”

Dominic, whose father was a police officer, couldn’t help but think of the emergency responders who were running into the burning buildings trying to save as many people as they could. They were making the ultimate sacrifice, he thought.

Nearly three years later in 2004, Dominic was called to make his own sacrifice when he was deployed to Iraq. He was excited to be part of a retaliation effort against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack and the terrorist groups that lingered as a threat to Americans’ safety.

But Dominic’s time in Iraq was punctuated in June 2005 by a severe injury he suffered after the military vehicle on which he was manning a gun was hit by an IED outside of Kirkuk, Iraq. Dominic received a Purple Heart medal for his sacrifice in 2008.

Sixteen years following his injury, Dominic still suffers from PTSD. He described himself as someone who is easily startled by loud noises and has nightmares about his service.

“I was one of the lucky ones that made it home with all my limbs,” he said. “There were some people in the hospital who weren’t quite as fortunate as I was.”

Despite his injuries and the enduring effects of his experience in Iraq, Dominic is grateful to have been given an opportunity to fight for his country.

“That was my opportunity to do something and give back, like the saying, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country,’” he said. “Joining the military was that opportunity for me to serve something greater than myself.”

Dominic now serves as the commander of the Military Order of the Purple for the Snake River Plain Chapter 829 and is involved every year in a 9/11 ceremony at the Bannock County Courthouse that honors veterans and first responders.

This year, on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the intention of the annual ceremony remains the same: “never forgetting what happened on 9/11 and paying tribute to the ones who suffered the most from the attack.”