Note: Ten years ago this month, Chattanooga sustained the worst terrorist attack in the city’s history. This is an insiders’ account of that day in 2015, when a gunman killed four Marines and a Navy sailor at the Naval Operations Service Center off Amnicola Highway.
Before dawn on the morning of July 16, 2015, an alarm clock wrestled Tim White out of sleep. The sound had intruded into his dream — one in which a terrorist threatened to kill White’s family.
In the dream, an armed, bearded man stood in a field. Behind him, a crowd of men and women held knives, machetes and guns.
White, 35 at the time, felt on edge the rest of the morning. He was a Navy lieutenant commander, reacting to the constant warnings from the U.S. Northern Command in response to terrorist activity worldwide. The command had encouraged service members and their families to remain vigilant, even when not in a duty status, White said.