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Next, another plane had done the same to the neighboring structure in the heart of New York City.
More calls started to come in, and as Baker arrived at the end of an eight-hour drive, the base they pulled onto was already in lockdown mode with guards on high alert equipped with full body armor.
Baker had just taken command of a maintenance company. He was on a trip to a resort town in Germany, where he was stationed.
There, he and the other company commanders were going to go mountain climbing.
Instead, they immediately loaded up and started back for their own small base near Dexheim, about half an hour outside of Frankfurt.
Frankfurt had been hit by terrorists before, Baker said.
The mindset on the base changed after that date.
"Every car got searched and before you could just drive onto a base and suddenly there were tons more guards," Baker said.
"Before Sept. 11, we focused strictly on training and what we needed to do. After, we had to focus much more on security," he said.
"One of the biggest issues was that each of those bases was responsible for managing and paying for that security themselves," Baker said.
"After all that, it became pretty clear we were going to end up deployed somewhere," he said. "Our training took on a new intensity."
It was what Baker had trained for.
Baker graduated from West Point in 1995 with a degree in aerospace engineering.
He accepted an officers commission as a second lieutenant and began training at Fort Knox, Ky.
As a kid, Baker attended Washington Public Schools from first through ninth grade.
He enjoyed fishing on the Meramec and at Montauk Spring. "We'd go fishing for little trout," he said.
His father worked as a pediatrician in town. The family had previously lived in Columbia, Mo.
After his officers training, Baker was assigned to Fort Lewis in Washington state and did advanced training in Virginia state.
In Washington state, Baker took an interest in salmon fishing. "We'd use herring for bait that were the size of the fish I used to catch in Missouri," he said.
Baker was first assigned to the 1st Armored Division as a company commander in Germany.
Following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. Army deployed into Afghanistan.
Baker did not.
Trained to fix everything from engines of M1 Abrams tanks, generators and rifles, Baker and his company did not deploy until 2003 when they entered Iraq shortly after the fall of Baghdad.
First his company convoyed 26 hours from Kuwait, which borders Iraq to the southeast, to outside the Iraqi capital, setting up Camp Dogwood. The trip should have taken about 10 hours, Baker said.
Baker sent his drivers back to Kuwait to get the rest of their equipment, whatever was left that they couldn't carry the first time around.
It was another 10 days until the drivers returned.
"We secured ourselves and had to secure our convoys daily," Baker said.
Baker's troops would take supplies to other units around Baghdad on a route that took about an hour and a half because of poor roads.
"Our convoys got regularly attacked, but we would push through that every day because the units out there in the different areas, they needed the items and equipment we had," he said.
In Iraq, Baker lost one man under his command, Orenthial "Smitty" J. Smith.
Smith was a 21-year-old South Carolina man who had been promoted to sergeant on the day he died in June 2003 according to the Fallen Heroes Memorial Web site.
Baker didn't talk a lot about Smith, but those on the Web site mention over and over his high levels of professionalism and leadership and other qualities that made him an exemplary man.
"When you're in command, you look at the young kids and you realize you're going to eventually put them in a place that can get them hurt," Baker said.
"It's a huge responsibility and I owe it to these kids to make sure they're ready for their upcoming deployments they're certainly going to face," he said.
Baker, who before deployment had been scheduled to return to Fort Lewis, stayed in Iraq for only about three months.
He returned to the states to train Army Reserve and National Guard troops and would later return to Iraq as a member of the 2nd Striker Company Regiment.
Baker said he took note of the level of support troops received from Americans back home.
"There are so many people out there who have supported us, whether or not they have agreed with the wars going on," he said. "They've supported us with care packages and whatever else, and I want to tell every one of them thank you.
"It really does make a difference to the guys sitting out there in 130-degree heat who get these boxes and packages of heartfelt gifts," Baker said.
"I tried to write thank-you notes to all of the senders I've come across," he said.
After his second tour, which lasted over a year, Baker is stationed at Fort Lavenworth, Kan.
He loves to be outdoors and his entire family enjoys skiing. "The kids grew up skiing in the Alps, so they've become little terrors on skis," he said.
Baker hopes to become a battalion commander and move up to commanding a brigade before the end of his military career.
Afterward, Baker said he would like to work for an outdoor clothing company.
"That's a way down the road," he noted.
