Remember 9/11

I do remember 9/11.  I was an officer on the staff of United States Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.  I was at my desk (well my little cubicle) doing some small bit of military staff work.  That is what the many officers and NCOs on war-fighting staffs like USCENTCOM do:  we work on small projects that eventually find their ways into one puzzle of the larger mission.

Someone came into my larger office area composed of about 10 of us and said “you better watch the television!”  We all huddled around the set in a brigadier general’s small office and watched the horrifying replay of the impact of the first plane into the North Tower at 8:46 A.M.  This was later confirmed to be American Airlines Flight #11 from Boston.  CNN was playing the tape over and over again.  We all were wondering what was going on and discussing whether this was an act of terrorism, a pilot gone insane, some other problem with the aircraft.  No one really knew at the time that this was a flight from Boston that was far off course. 

We were still intently watching when another image came on the screen.  It was another 767 crashing into the South Tower.  It was United Flight #175 crashing into the South Tower at about 9:03.  Someone asked whether that “is some other view” of the first crash, and then we all saw the big words “LIVE” on the screen, and heard that it was yet another plane.  Within the next half hour, a plane crashed into the Pentagon.  Those of us in the room talked about a member of our staff who was TDY to the Pentagon, wondering her fate.  We talked about people we personally knew who were stationed in Washington and worked in “The Building.”  We heard later that day of the plane that went down in Pennsylvania (Flight #77) because brave passengers rose up to challenge the hijackers.

Mostly, we talked about how this now obvious act of terror would change things in the United States.  We did not know how exactly, but we did have some inkling, since the military was our profession.  During the next months and years, we all found out how much 9/11 changed us.  We went to war in Afghanistan to root out al Qaeda.  We thought we had bin Laden cornered just a few short weeks later but he somehow slipped away.  We went to war in Iraq for reasons that were somehow linked to this most horrible of days. The aftermath of 9/11 first boosted the popularity of and sympathy for the United States, and then a few years later, the aftermath of 9/11 made us very unpopular and unsympathetic.

9/11 affected me personally.  I deployed in 2005, but this was my only deployment, and that frankly makes me feel quite guilty.  Many other members of the military have not been so fortunate.  Several personal friends have deployed more than five times to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and other places.  Many members of the National Guard have deployed from their homes between three and seven times.  Many of these Guardsmen have lost their civilian jobs back home because their employers could not see clearly enough to keep these patriots on the payroll.  Many have died.  More than 6,300 U.S. military personnel have lost their lives.  These people—all volunteers—did the jobs that their country asked them to do and we should never forget them.  Well over 100,000 Iraqis have died, and certainly not all of them died at the hands of U.S. or Allied soldiers.  Perhaps 13,000 people from Afghanistan have died, and it is clear that a large number of them have died at the hands of the Taliban and others.  War is awful and ugly, and is fraught with intended and unintended consequences, and that is why we must be very careful when we decide we are going to pursue it as “politics by other means” as Clausewitz famously said.

But really….Today is not really the day to argue with each other.  I need to remind myself of that, and we all need to do the same.  Today is not the day to argue over whether one president or one party is more to blame for 9/11 or its consequences.  Today is not that day to shout each other down on our 24/7 news networks.  Today is just a day to remember.  There is meaning in remembering.  There is value in deciding we should not forget the past.  We should not forget that more than 3,000 people who went to work that Tuesday morning in New York City and Washington D.C. never came home for dinner.  We should remember that most of them had zero connection to the absurd and murderous and medieval anger of Osama bin Laden.  We should remember that there really were (and are) people in this world who think that disagreement with their theology is equivalent to blasphemy and that those guilty of blasphemy must die.  We should also remember that that kind of fanaticism is not confined to the adherents of just one religion, and that fanatics are not just of the religious variety. 

What we should remember, finally, is this.  We should remember the sense of resolve and unity that we all gained that day.  We should keep our promises to each other.  We should say “I love you” to the people in our lives.  We should buy a cup of coffee for a soldier in the airport.  We should look people in the eyes and affirm their humanity.  We should try a heck of a lot harder on our jobs.  We should fight hard to preserve educational systems that battle illiteracy and ignorance, not just for our children, but also for the children of people in Afghanistan, and China, and Djibouti.  We should remember that we are all humans and we must continue our eternal mission of finding understanding with each other.  That is a “Sisyphean Task” if there ever was one.  But we need to keep pushing that ball up the hill, even if we know it is going to be pushing us back down time and again.  That is what we should remember.