24 Years Later... 9/11... once united, now divided

Every year on Sept 11 I’m reminded of a moment in my life that is simply unforgettable. 

But this I morning is the first time in 24 years that it wasn’t the paramount thought on my mind. It’s tough to focus on the tragedy of 9/11 while trying to wrap my mind around an assassination yesterday and a brutal killing just days before. Not to mention the rash of growing political violence in the last year. 

So let’s see how my thoughts play out. 

24 years ago while on active duty I was awakened by the same news coverage that every other American saw. A smoking World Trade Center building. I was actually on leave (vacation) in Los Angeles at the time. Sleeping on my friend’s sofa, his wife woke me up to show me the news. In my drowsy state I actually said, “cool, what movie is that?”. But it wasn’t a movie and then the second plane hit. 

I had already been deployed to the Middle East. I was already a small part of the ongoing conflict on the other side of the world. Now our own planes were being used in a direct assault against us. And I was a member of the Department of Defense responsible for responding to and defending our nation. 

My grandmother was born on Dec 7 and would tell me how Pearl Harbor forever changed her birthday. My sister born Sept 11 now faced the same forever change. I am not certain I understood this before 9/11 and each year this truth grows more and more. 

Today when talking with youth about that day, I understand what my grandmother must have felt like explaining Pearl Harbor to me. There are no words to accurately describe it. Just a humble remembrance of a tragic attack followed by one of the few times in history my country was truly united. I took my wife and daughter to the 9/11 memorial museum in NYC. It was the first time I was able to let her see with her own eyes what we were remembering every year. And it was a flood of memories for me.

Today, 24 years later ‘united’ is the last word I would use to describe us. In 2009 Obama became POTUS. America’s first black president who would finally end the racial and economic divide. Except he did exactly the opposite and by the end of his two terms our nation was more divided than I had ever seen it. Trump stepped in the division grew rapidly. Then Biden stepped in and ramped it up even more. Each POTUS driving a deeper wedge of division into our nation than the previous one. 

Today Trump is back and the wedge is deeper than it’s ever been. So to contrast the unity this nation had with the disunity we have today is striking, to say the least. 

Yesterday a man was assassinated for his expressing his thoughts and engaging in open dialogue with anyone who would come to talk with him. I’ve always considered myself well versed in politics, religion and dialogue in those realms. Charlie Kirk, even at his young age could run circles around me. He lived and died by what he believed. He was a true man of principle. He is resting with God now. But his death has robbed a young wife and two young children of their husband and father. 

The response to this man’s murder is both blessed and tragic. I’ve seen people from both sides decry the violence. But the tragic is that there are American’s celebrating and praising the murder of a man. I don’t know what to say about such people besides, you are evil and wretched. 

When I was in the Navy my ship dropped bombs in Iraq. The local news was fed in and it showed the aftermath of our actions. There was no pretending we were innocuously floating in the ocean. I only have to think of it and those images of the direct aftermath of our bombing are clear in my head. They were the enemy, and yet I mourned the tragic end of their lives. But I was on a warship and this is what warships do. 

Charlie Kirk was on a college campus engaging in dialogue peacefully with anyone who would come to talk to him. I have no kind words for anyone who would praise this murder. 

And yet I’m not surprised. Because over and over agains we’ve seen our politician and media defending criminals and murders for political gain. We’ve indoctrinated a generation into believing that what is evil is good and what is good is evil. We are in the midst of the consequences of the divide that was started 16+ years ago and is now mainstream in the lives and minds of so many.  

My political outlook used to be left vs right. But that is no longer true. It’s good vs evil. How dare you call a political side ‘evil’? Because it is. And I say this knowing both friends and family who are on that side of the political spectrum. I would say to them, you need to acknowledge that your party has left you and is now embracing pure evil. 

When the people and political voices I find myself aligned with are the very people I would have argued with 20 years ago; when the voices of reason come from those who were Democrats a second ago; when the most powerful voices in the direction we should be going are led by exDemocrats (Trump, Tusli, The Free Press, WalkAway, JFKjr, Rogan, MK, and countless more); then I know the world is not the same place I was raised in. It’s not the same place that was united 9/11 24 years ago. All of the voices I find myself aligned with today, I absolutely would have been opposed to yesterday. 

Charlie Kirk was a rare exception to this. He was always grounded in faith, truth and conservative principles. He held within him an encyclopedic knowledge that few can grasp or compare to. He was informed by Scripture and by a deep knowledge of history and literature, that most in our nation never begin to understand or learn. His death was tragic for his family, but also for the loss of a voice of reason that has become anathema in today’s world. 

9/11 was a nationally tragic day. Yet it gave me hope in the future. Unfortunately that hope has been short lived. Today, only a generation later we stand divided. We are destroying ourselves from within. We have forgotten the lessons of 9/11. We have forgotten the lessons of the last 60 years. 

When the twin towers fell they left those who didn’t die covered in dust and ash. Everyone still standing had the same dull grey debris covered image. They all looked the same. And they all stood together. They dug in to uncover anyone who might still be alive, because life was precious. Other peoples lives were precious. Humanity mattered that day. 

Today only our own lives are precious. Only the lives politics tells us to care about are precious. Death is to be celebrated if it’s against our political foe or ignored if it’s not politically expedient to talk about. Criminals are victims who must be sheltered and protected. Released over and over again to commit more crime. Homeless are just a normal part of life EVERYWHERE. Their lives don’t matter. How they got there, irrelevant. We hear the cries for compassion and justice, yet we embrace injustice and indifference. 

I grew up just outside of Compton. It was the edge of middle class and poverty. It was the peak of the gang warfare of the 80’s. The race riots of the early 90’s. That world filled with violence, crime and hate, had more compassion than the world I see today. 

Maybe the death of Charlie will be another Turning Point in this nation. Maybe it can unite us once again. I’m not convinced of this. I don’t know if we will ever be able to put back together the divide that has been forced upon us for most of the 21st century. I fear the wedge has already broken our nation beyond the point of repair. I hope I’m wrong. 

“The Lord Bless you and keep you;

The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace”

I pray for God’s mercy upon our nation. I pray the world my children are now entering as young adults is a place turning towards good; towards justice; towards faith; That was the hope of Charlie Kirk. That was his resounding message day after day. I pray that our nation grows in the love of all life, united in this drive for a better future. The hope we found in 9/11 is currently lost, but Lord willing it is not lost forever.  

Where has the writer in me gone?

 

I used to be an avid writer, with a pen and paper no less. I was writing my sister’s college papers in high school, and then typing them up for her because she couldn’t type. I would hand write letters to my friends, to girls I liked, to family far away. I would journal my thoughts (a practice I started when I was 9) in books that no one ever read. In the Navy letter writing was one of the ways to pass the time at sea. When I was dating my wife, we lived 3000 miles apart. Even though we would try to talk daily, we still wrote letters to each other. 

For many years I would engage in political and theological discussions via email or message board. I would research and think, rethink and overthink my positions and thoughts. Countless hours spent digging into subjects to better understand not just what I was thinking but what my opposition was thinking. So, by default reading, was my balance to my writing. 

It was my therapy to just dump my thoughts out onto paper or type them into a word (type) document on my computer (because I’ve been a computer geek since the 1980’s). I didn’t care who read it or if anyone read it. Much like my wife tells me about her artwork, “I do it for me”. 

But as life goes my work life shifted from one of physical activity and troubleshooting to one of constant mental drudgery, planning, organization, political wrestling, and deep analysis. By the time I’d get home each day, the thought of using my mind for anything else was just anathema. And so, I fell out of the habit of writing, of mentally dumping my mind into words. 

In this time of my sabbatical from the expressive writing world, social media began to grow. Suddenly everyone under the sun was ‘writing’ except it wasn’t deep thoughts but soundbites, endless soundbites. 

The last few years I’ve found I have more time to enter the world of writing that once was my fortress of solace. Yet whenever I try, I find myself uninspired, and hit a wall. I feel like I’m trying to sing a ballad in the middle of 10,000 other musicians just screaming into the same stadium. Some of them can actually sing, but most of them are just awful noise. And the reverberation of all of those voices and instruments at once is deafening. 

This is what social media has done to the philosopher in me. It’s silenced me out of frustration and annoyance. I don’t know how to speak into this medium. 

I also used to have grandiose ideas about the world and the potential impact I may or may not have. But I’ve learned that the true impact of my life is in the circle of the lives that God has placed in my path. I’m still entertained by politics, but I no longer see it as important enough for me to dig into and wrestled other with. I still am passionate about God, theology and religion, but again am drawn back to the circle of influence in my life, verses the masses out there who may or may not read the chaotic thoughts of my minds writing.  

Nor do I spend nearly as much time wrestling with these things myself internally (which was a great inspiration for writing). My internal focus is greatly shifted to external. I’ve developed internal complacency, which I’ll admit is not a good idea.

Am I now just a guy who shares the witty anecdotes of others? Is my original thinking gone? Have I lost the knack for converting the chaos of my mind into coherent language?

The world is full of young thought hustlers on social media. Screaming unoriginal thoughts into the void. It’s also full of the absurd. We are inundated with it, and I’m left asking myself, why even try to argue against such ridiculous self-refuting ideas? And yet these ideas, no matter how absurd, linger and grow like fungus on a tree. 

Today I read the following statement:

“Imagine going back to the ’90s and explaining to someone that the big marketing controversy of 2025 was a hot young blonde selling jeans.”

The very notion is beyond irrational and extreme, and yet that’s all I’ve been seeing for days now. 

Yet this defines the other challenge someone like me faces when engaging this world today; The rate at which these maddening arguments come and go is lightspeed. There is no time to even wrap your head around the concepts before it’s gone, and the next rage bate concept is before you. 

I’m accustomed to grabbing hold of ideas and ferreting out the very roots of their existence, which could take hours, days, months or even years. But instead, like in the I LOVE LUCY episode where Ricky puts Lucy on a very strict time schedule, the meal before you is gone before you even have a chance to get the fork into your mouth to taste it. 

Sticking with the LUCY analogy, how does one write a review about a meal that he never even gets to taste? 

In high school I spent the last 2 years as a TA helping my computer science teacher write a computer diary program. Back then computer programming was minutia to the extreme. You had to account for every detail, every connection, every flow path. It was an exercise is extreme attention to detail, to obtain the desired results. It was trial and error exponentially expressed over long periods of time. 

I long for the days of minds that dig into the minutia, rather than pounce on the fleeting ‘rage’ of the moment. I want to teach our youth the glory of developing a deep understanding of something, of achieving expertise, of being so familiar with something that not only can you see the forest through the trees, but you also see the flowers, the vines, the critters and all the fauna sharply and positively. You know intimately and with certainty the knowledge you possess. You hashed through it relentlessly to the point that it becomes just another part of you. You are the Tom Bombadil of your field, one with the forest you dwell in.   

I don’t know if I’ll ever be a prolific writer again. I no longer feel the need to write for myself, and there are few others I feel the need to write for. Or maybe I’m just out of practice and know the work it will take to rekindle the fire of my pen, and I’ve grown lazier in my middle age. It’s one thing to hold in your mind lots of information, it’s quite another to express it with detail. And that’s the crux. I’ve lost the minutia of many of my thought paths, and I don’t know that I’m inclined to put in the work to reclaim that. 

And yet, even in this moment I am smiling at the therapeutic aspects of the release of the chaos of my mind. Maybe a simple return to my 9 year old self and a diary would be a good start.

Here I am!

 So, the upside to being your own boss is you end up with lots of time to think. The downside to being your own boss is you end up with lots of time to think. It was the best of times… it was the worst of times….

 

Historically I’ve hashed through politics and religion. But it seems of late I spend more time hashing through my kids, their pending adult lives, my wife, our pending life with 3 adult children (not there yet, but close), business or lack thereof. 

 

Which sounds normal, I spent so much of my life focused on survival and the here and now, that it sees odd to me to be worrying about the future. Not that the here and now still doesn’t have its troubles, but it seems that life has reached a point where the ship is sailing generally in the direction of choice.

 

My youngest kids are now both teenagers of driving age. They are thinking about their future as adults, trying to understand the world we are giving them. My oldest has been married for almost 3 years now. And my wife is about to turn 50. 

 

Where does the time go? It occurred to me recently that right now I’m the age my father was the day I joined the Navy. I remember the things he told me as I was signing my life away. I trusted his counsel then and here I am now the same age. Do I understand the things he told me from a father’s perspective now? Am I as wise as he was? Would I give my kids the same advice? Am I prepared to see one of my children commit six years of their life to anything?

 

I don’t know. 

 

Aren’t I still that young 20 something guy just trying to stay afloat? No, I am the guy who has run industrial maintenance departments for 2 decades and is know running his own business. 

 

Aren’t I the guy lost in religious chaos just looking for truth and real meaning? No, I’m the guy that planted a church knowing exactly what he was looking for in his faith and religion.

 

Aren’t I the guy looking to find a pretty lady and marry her?  Have some kids and raise a family? No, I’m the guy with an adult married son, a 17 year old young man on his way out the door and a 15 year old daughter not far behind. Because I did marry that pretty lady and she has spent 20 years raising my children.

 

Interestingly enough I’ve become the counselor. People of all ages and walks of life often seek me out regarding business or life or religion or marriage or personal struggles that they belief I can provide meaningful guidance in. I can’t say for sure exactly when I shifted from the young buck struggling in need of direction to the middle age ‘wise’ man but apparently that is the state of things. 

 

I also can’t say I understand why exactly people think I have this thing called wisdom.  Sometimes you just have to trust the reflection people give you of yourself. And apparently my counsel has been found to be useful on at least a few occasions. Because people keep sending new people my way. So much for being a wallflower. 

 

Lots of time to think means lots of self-reflection. How did I get here? Where am I going? What is important to me? 

 

That last one is actually intriguing. I’ve found that there isn’t much I’m passionate about in regards to myself. Certainly my kids and wife and their needs, but outside that, I’m finding I am rather simple.

 

For instance yesterday I spent a few hours in my backyard with my chainsaw cutting up fallen trees. I couldn’t have been happier. Not a care in the world outside of making sure I don’t lose a limb. If you had told me that something as simple and mundane as cutting wood would be joyful and fulfilling to me, I would have laughed. I don’t like simple and mundane. But somehow God has given me this one thing that satiates me. 

 

Someday my kids will all be grown (not long now). I do wonder what will be the focus of my life then?  What will be my priorities then? I feel like I’m entering a new season of life. One which I’m not familiar yet. This current season has been a long one. This new season is upon me. 

 

It reminds me of my first year in Michigan, having moved from LA, we were woefully unprepared for this thing called winter. It was miserable and jarring and chaotic. I hope I’m better prepared for this next season than I was for my first Michigan winter. 

 

What worries me more is are my kids ready for this next season. Their venture into adulthood. My oldest seems to be holding his own. 

 

So, I guess I really am the middle aged semi-wise man. Not sure how I got here. Don’t know where I’m going next. But here I am.  

An Officer and a Gentlemen….

 It seems the only time I write anymore is in response to loss. And this is no exception.

 

Mark Gerger is a man who lived a long life before I ever met him. A policeman, an educator, a detective (to name just a few of his lives), a husband, a father and a solid Christian man of God.

 

By the time we met he was long retired from police work and was serving his church in PA. His daughter, a dear friend, excitedly introduced us on one of his visits back to the place he called home most of his life. I invited them both over for a meal and we had lively conversation sitting on my deck for hours. And thus began a short but blessed friendship.

 

Mark loved to tell stories and he had many many to tell. But where I found we most connected was in wrestling with God together. Somehow our conversations always seemed to end up wrestling through some theological conundrum. It was a joy to watch him wrap his head around a concept and then immediately find real life applications both past and present to the topic at hand. For him the pragmatic connections to life is what mattered. His years of service had exposed him to darkness and hardship, but also joy and growth, all of which he brought into our conversations. It gave him a gentle softness of understanding and compassion that few without his life experience grasp. His failures were ever before him, but he always tried to move forward walking in Christ a life of reconciliation.

 

Even though he had many health challenges in the years of our friendship his only deep worries were his wife and his daughter. He loved them both and it was his passion to find ways to stay in both of their lives. Which was difficult since he lived 600 miles away. He told me so many stories of both of them. While I don’t remember the details of many of the stories, I remember the joy he had telling me about them. He felt blessed and challenged by both of them.

 

No matter his struggle, I never saw his smile fade. His face always was a reflection of the joy within him. A joy that never seemed to fade. I remember visiting him sick in the hospital and he’s just smiling and talking as if we are just chilling at the coffee house. His illness meant nothing to him, only the joy of the conversation in that moment.

 

If you were blessed enough to spend any time with him, he made you smile. His joy for life was contagious.

 

During the heart of Covid isolation we decided to make the most of technology and started a weekly Bible study (him, his daughter and I). We would all read the same chapters throughout the week, we would meet via zoom to enjoy each other’s company and hash through God’s Word.

 

I grew a lot that year. Every week he pushed the envelope to bring us to pragmatic applications of the Word we had read. He forced me to come prepared because he wasn’t a man to back down for any reason and he had deep and difficult insight. It was a great blessing to grow in God’s Word together, especially in the heart of isolation and fear which had cast its dark shadow on our nation. In a world that had gone crazy, we found friendship, companionship, and God together.

 

We never would sit face to face again. Even after he moved back to KZ, he was cautious and kept his distance for health safety.

 

I know that today he is in the house of our Lord in the rooms prepared for him. I know he is free of pain and suffering and has answers that he and I could only debate about. I know his joy is now complete in Christ. But I already miss him. Not that we connected often, but it was always a blessing when we did.

 

In this life my time with him is over. May I grow to be full of joy in all I do as he was.

 

He was my friend, and I will miss him. Praise God that one day I will get to see him again.

December 7th... A day that will live in infamy....

Today my grandmother would have been 110 years old. She is one of the few people from my youth that I have vivid and detailed memories of.

One of the clearest memories was when she told me about Pearl Harbor. It was her 30th birthday. It was devastating and every birthday after was forever changed by that one day. Even 40+ years after the attack the emotion it brought to her still sits in my memory.

I have often tried to connect history with what I know of her. For instance, she loved to dance. She made her own dresses and danced twice a week. She watched Lawrence Welk religiously enthralled by the music and dancing. She enrolled me in tap dancing when I was 5 or 6 (something I wish I had kept up with). Was this because she was a teenager in the roaring 20’s? Was dancing a major part of the Great Depression which started when she was 18? When did her love of dancing begin? I never thought to ask her.

As an adult I have far more questions than I did as a kid. I would love to hear he tell me about the roaring 20’s, the great depression, life during WWII. Things I simply didn’t know about or have any understanding of back then.

For many today is a day to remember Pearl Harbor, and as a veteran it is just as significant a day as 9/11. But for me it’s a yearly reminder of my father’s mother. A woman who always tried to bring out the best in me. Always held me accountable for my actions or lack thereof. Who shared the joys of her life with me and loved me unconditionally. A devout Catholic yet pragmatic enough to stop me from falsely following her religious practices. A lover of life, but one who kept meticulous records and a perfectly maintained home.

I don’t know who she was as a friend, wife, mother ect. But I do know who she was as a grandmother. Someone who touched my life in ways that I will never forget.

And as and adult, a husband, a father I seek to touch those I love with the same lasting impact. May I live to be the grandfather my grandchildren never forget. May I be the father who's children love and respect him all their days. May I be the husband who shares a long meaningful life with his beloved bride.

And may I see my grandmother in heaven one day.

But God…

There are moments in life that have profound and lasting impacts on you.  Moments which push you to seek the truth about yourself.  Moments that God uses to speak to you. I think I’ve just been through one such moment. 

As long as I can remember I’ve had a low self-esteem.  And somehow, I always found someone or many someone’s to keep me moving forward in life.  I have ridden the wave of the amazing people in my life for decades now.  I have always had some inkling of this combined with the foundation that God gave me through my very rough youth.  

 

September 28th one of those amazing persons, one of my oldest friends died.  A member of what was known as ‘the tree people’ and the even closer group ‘the guys’.  His death stemmed what would be a very long two plus weeks of laughter, tears, struggles, and love.  

 

When I found out he died I immediately contacted his oldest brother (one of my best friends JB).  After a few failed attempts to find my way back to LA to just be there for whoever may need me, his brother jumped in his car and began another crazy road trip to pick me up (we’ve been known to take crazy road trips for decades).  He drove all evening and then I drove all night until both of us were back in California (the place where our lifelong friendship began).  

 

Over the next two weeks I would be reminded of the amazing life I’ve been blessed with.  A life I’ve often looked back on through a negative pane.  I would be reminded of friendships (family) that even though it’s been a very long time apart (some decades) would forever be a foundational part of who I am.  I would get to experience how much I love them.  We would spend time travelling down memory lane in joy and sorrow.  We would be reminded of times of struggle and sorrow that forged us together and other times of joy, and rampant carelessness that bonded us.  Memories that would make us all ask, how the hell did any of us make it through, yet alone how did almost all of us become grounded in God, blessed with family and gifted with relative success in life.  

 

I would get to see the youth grown up and their amazing lives and families that had developed while I was away.  

 

And I would reconnect with friendships that had been damaged, and seemingly lost, that suddenly were not.  Because you just don’t get to replace the people who became your rocks in life during your youth.  And I would be amazed at how despite the long gap of time, it was just like yesterday.  

 

The first week was what I will call support.  Primarily spent with the family of the deceased, doing whatever was needed.  The hardest day was spent with the new widow as we worked side by side to go through his things.  Or maybe it was time spent watching his parents, who need care, talking with his little brother or oldest sister or even his sister-in-law.  Spending time together trying to solve the mystery of ‘what now?’.  Living in memories, but also living in the current moment of joy and pain.  And being reminded of God’s providence in life and death.  

 

The second week was the emotional week.  Everywhere I turned there was someone from my past whom I knew.  Someone who like me was grieving the sudden loss of a brother who passed ‘before his time’.  I don’t actually believe anyone passes before their time.  God’s will is God’s will and no one goes to Him outside of His will.  My friend’s time was now.  We just didn’t know it or expect it.  

 

I heard some survivors guilt.  I heard the ‘I should have…’ statements.  I saw genuine pain, loss and sorrow.  But in the midst of this I saw the bonds of love and friendship that I’ve taken for granted for so long.  I saw the support of a ‘family’ that isn’t of blood, but of time, of joy, of longsuffering, of tears.  

 

I also had the opportunity to visit my old church.  Only for a brief window but enough to be embraced by a Christian fellowship I left behind.  To be reminded of simple things like a letter of gratitude remembered or a gift given and never forgotten.  The warm hug of a friend whose life changed me.  To reconnect with the wife and children of another good friend who passed not too long ago.  To see the lasting impact of the simplest acts of love and kindness.  A pastor who continues to be a great friend and mentor.  A Church that blessed me and even now continues to bless me.  A model which I’ve tried to mimic in my current place, in my current church.  A sharp reminder of God’s blessings in my life.  

 

In this one brief two-week window God opened my eyes to all He has done for me in my life.  Instilled in me a deep and unmeasurable gratitude for the many pieces of a life puzzle that I never could have imaged making sense together. Nor could have planned to assemble in my wildest dreams.  

 

There was one sentiment that I think we all shared.  Let’s not allow this renewed fire of life and appreciation for each other dwindle.  Let’s not forget the blessing God has given us until the next passing of life.  For we are without excuse.  Words easy to say in the midst of the emotional highs and lows.  Much harder to hold to when the emotional swell is gone, and life returns to the mundane or survival of our current existence. It’s a high bar to set.  Family and friendship is work.  It requires sacrifice and time commitments and intent.  All things which seem hard to come by.  

 

As I shared this with my wife, her first comment was, “Don’t forget about your family as well?”  In many ways I have better bonds with family through friendship, than family through blood.  See there are fences to mend there as well.  But she is right.  I simply can’t allow life to let me give up or not care just because we are thousands of miles apart.  I can’t stop the work of reaching out in love regardless of the response.    

 

God has gifted me with family both blood and otherwise.  He has forged us as such.  And no time or distance can change that.  But time and distance can and has caused complacency and acceptance of a disconnect that family should never allow.  For God has chosen these people to be my rocks.  And he has likewise chosen me to be their rocks.  

 

I’ve seen a few deaths in my lifetime.  But this was the first death of one of ‘the guys’.  This was a strike to the core group of men who have always been there for me.  And even though I wasn’t close to Jules in the second half of his life, he was a foundational part to the friendship and family I was reminded of as we all gathered to remember him.  I miss him not because we spent so much time together in these later years, but because some people simply are a part of you.  As one of ‘the guys’ said, I never would have known any of you if it wasn’t for Jules.  How different would all of our lives have been without each other?  

 

This time, this place, these people….  How blessed am I; I simple can’t measure.  God’s providence and foreordained plan for my life.  Thank you God.

 

Psalms 139:16

“Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

 

But God….  

 

20 Years Ago I was just a young and foolish Sailor

24 years and 8 months ago I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.  In truth I didn’t understand what I was doing that day.  I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  I was just a floundering 20-year-old with no direction.  So, I volunteered 6 years of my life for something I couldn’t possibly fathom.  

3 years and 9 months later the USS Cole was bombed killing 17 US Sailors and injuring more.  Just a little over one month later, my ship (CVN 75 USS Harry S Truman) set sail on its first ever deployment.  Every port we pulled into was exciting, but also concerning.  The Cole was on our mind on every port, especially in the Persian Gulf.  

We cancelled a port visit to Israel due to conflicts and concerns.  We crossed the Suez followed by and military jeep with a 50 cal pointed at us the whole way. We settled patrol in the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Southern Watch (google it).  We stopped in Dubai and Bahrain.  896 combat sorties were flown.  We cancelled another port visit in Bahrain.  It was hot, so hot they set limits on our time in the engine room, it was miserable, it was what we were there to do.  

You might think a ship the size of an Aircraft Carrier was plenty big.  Spend months at a time on such a ship and you will learn just how small it really is.  A city that never sleeps and requires constant manning to perform its mission.  A place where rest is something you catch when you can, meals are things you are grateful when you get them, and the world outside doesn’t exist.  Though the occasional letter or care package will remind you that there is a place called home somewhere on the other side of the planet that you will return to someday.  Every port visit is a short reprieve which rejuvenates you and prepares you for the next stretch of time at sea.  And every missed port visit is a reminder that there is an enemy that wants to do you harm.  

Your shipmates become your friends, brothers, and sisters.  Those who hold you up and carry your through from day to day, hour to hour.  So, you all can keep the ship moving, keep it ready, keep it on task and on mission.  Spend countless hours at the bottom of a ship with the same people and you will form bonds that simply are unbreakable.      

We returned home in May one week shy of a full 6-month deployment.  September 5^th, we docked at Portsmouth shipyard.  And then I took my first leave in a long time.  

September 11th I was still in the first week of my leave.  I woke up on the sofa of one of my oldest and best friends.  His wife shook me awake.  She directed my attention to the television.  I asked her what movie she was watching.  I don’t even remember her response.  But I can still see the second plane hit.  Can’t say I remember much more about that day beyond that single moment.  I watched videos to get the whole picture since then, but as for me, I only remember that moment.    

All air travel was immediately shut down.  My command told me to stay until I could fly back (being in the shipyard there was no urgency to deploy or find alternative ways to get me back to Virginia).  The time I spent at home, while good to spend time with family and friends, was overshadowed by this attack on US soil.  It was a time of gratitude to be spending time with people I loved, but always somber.  

I served 15 more months in the Navy on board the Truman.  I saw the transformation in how the Navy operated.  I saw the transformation in air travel.  I saw the transformation in a nation that was enraged and ready to face the enemy that attacked us.  

December 5, 2002 was my last day on active duty.  I sat on the pier with a friend and fellow shipmate who was also on his last day.  We watched as our ship set off on its second deployment without us.  Both of us grateful to know our service was complete.  

The America I returned to (one again a civilian) was not the same.  We had changed in ways that are hard to describe.  

For two decades we have been engaged in war because of that day.  At first the news was committed to keeping us informed.  But as time passed the ongoing war simply became forgotten.  You didn’t talk about the middle east conflict unless you knew someone that was deployed.  But just because we no longer talked about doesn’t mean it wasn’t still going on. 

I’ve had decades to think about my service and the service of others.  To think about what it means to send young men and women into harms way.  To think about not just the what but the why.  To think about the two attacks that occurred against the US on my watch.  To think about the oath I swore and grow to understand that my service may be complete but my oath is not.  To learn to appreciate all of those who serve in the various roles and actions.  To know that all military/veterans see through a lens that you simply can’t explain to those who haven’t served.  And that our call to serve is never-ending.  

On May 1, 2003 (just 5 months after my enlistment ended) President Bush declared victory in Iraq.  MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.  But the war continued both in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It continued through the end of his Presidency.  It continued through Obama’s Presidency.  And it continued through Trump’s Presidency.  Regardless of what you think of President Biden or his exit from Afghanistan, the war that started 20 years ago is now over. 

I don’t know what that actually means.  In one way shape or form, the US has been involved in conflicts in the middle east my entire life.  I suspect that we will be threatened again and will once again send our young men and women into harm’s way (not that we aren’t continually doing so at various places around the world).  History will repeat itself.  It always does.  

My grandmother was born on December 7^th.  She once told me that her birthday was never the same after Pearl Harbor.  My sister is born on September 11^th.  She has told me the same.

I am blessed to live in America at this time.  To have been born into a time and place of freedom not often seen throughout history.  And while I often cringe and worry about the direction we are headed, there is still no other place or time I would want to be in.  God has been gracious to me and all of us in this gift.  I don’t know how long this great experiment will last.  244 years is a short time in the age of nation.  But for now, we get to push forward with this grand idea that freedom is possible and to be pursued.  

I’m grateful for the lifelong friends I now have because of my time in the Navy.  I’m grateful for the unity we all share in the life we lived together.  I’m grateful for the combined wisdom and knowledge and understand we are all able to bring to each other.  And I’m grateful we all did so during a dark time when evils of unimaginable nature occurred. 

20 years ago, terrorist seized control of numerous airplanes intent on flying them into symbols of our nation.  Almost all of them succeeded.  3000 people died.  Some of them were the brave men/women who had one goal, to save as many people as they could regardless of the risk to themselves.  Some of them were those who fought the hijackers and prevented them from being fully successful in their plans at the cost of their own lives.  None of them thought it was their last day on earth.  It was just Tuesday morning.  There is still much mystery in the 9/11 story.  I’m not going to dig into the various conspiracy theories that exist (some plausible, some not).  But today, I admire and honor those who gave their lives that day, when I was just a young foolish lad in the Navy.  

There is now a generation that doesn’t know the world before 9/11.  For them this has just always been part of history.  Just as my grandmother tried to help me understand what December 7^th meant to her, we should continue to teach our children not just what but why 9/11 is a day most of us can never forget.  We should try to show them the world we once knew and help them to understand that we are blessed with the great gift of living in America.  That to this day people around the world make great sacrifices just for the opportunity to live in the nation we have been born into.  And the gifts we are blessed with are not to be taken lightly, but to be cherished, defended, fought for.  That there are those who have died in defense of those ideas.  

I’ve heard the question asked, “Where was God on 9/11?”  Well, He has been here all along.  And His Grace and goodness will continue to abound despite efforts to hate, anger, terrorize and perform so many other acts of sin and depravity.  After 9/11, for a short while at least, I saw a nation united.  A nation that served a cared and supported each other.  May we never forget that there is great blessings in the service of our fellow man. 

My prayer is that God will continue to bless America with His rich graces.  That He will use our home, our nation to further spread His gospel to the nations of the world.  That my children and grandchildren will not face terror, but peace and prosperity.  That the dream of our founding fathers may continue for generations to come.  That freedom will continue to be paramount in our nation.  

May God bless us this day of remembrance.