"Lest we forget..........." Topic

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I watched news and read incessantly for several years afterwards. For many years I have not been able to revisit the events in media. I've yet to see the movies that were made.

Near two decades, marriage, children, careers later I am only now beginning to revisit the events. Even being no where near the events it has been very troubling.

Its given me clarity to see who our real friends are in this world. Its not the decadent powers of totalitarian Asian regimes.

I was on my way back to the barracks from Morning PT.

Once I got into work, I heard them call "Set DEFCON 3" over the building PA system. Immediately followed by a loud "oh, !" from the radio room next door to the ship's office. The Chief Radioman never swore. Ever.

I was leading a team doing an inspection on USS Nimitz that morning. We departed the ship when they started to make preps to get underway and stood on the quaywall at NOB Norfolk and watched the Atlantic Fleet sortie at 500 yard intervals doing 20+ knots. Normal interval was 2000 yards at 15 kts. It was one of the spookiest things I'd ever witnessed.

It was also the first time I ever saw aircraft (F-14/15/16 /18s) flying over Hampton Roads with live ordnance on their wings.

A few weeks later, my team was on the USS Theodore Roosevelt when they launched the first air strikes into Afghanistan. We'd watched the planes launch with their wings loaded and saw them come back a few hours later trailing arming wires. I remember counting the planes to see if they all came home.

We can't forget that just like we can't Pearl Harbor. IMO, we still have not got enough payback for that attack 17 years ago … There are still a lot of terrorist targets out there that need to be "serviced with extreme prejudice", IMO …

Five hours earlier one of my friends had booked tickets for 4 of us to go to the US in November. Needless to say we went of course. I was working away and the finance manager we were dealing with came into our audit room and told us what had happened. Thought it was the opening line of a weird joke at first. RIP to those who fell.

Thanks for posting this. It's too easy to forget with all the real and imagined "crises" we are inundated with by the news media daily and hourly.

I watched the History Channels annual "102 Minutes" again last night, I've watched it when repeated several times over the years, and for a few minutes, I am made to re-experience the outrage I and so many others felt. And should still feel.

I thought then that a war had in effect begun, and reluctantly guessed it could take twenty years to resolve. Here, seventeen in, and clearly it's got a long way to go still. I had thought that after a generation of failed Jihad against the West, the next generation would see that no amount of suicidal attacks had materially changed the state of the world or Islam and that this phase of its resistance would move on to something else.

Well, obviously I was wrong. Or, at the very least, the "progress" of the Jihad would be against fellow Muslims (and such Christians they could attack) in the Middle East and Muslim world in general. With the advent of ISIS and the energy that went into the attempt to recreate The Caliphate, a great deal was invested over there and less so against the West.

As the general Jihad continues to spread, and new potential bases of operation (as Afghanistan was in 2001) develop in North Africa and elsewhere, it may only be a matter of time before it returns to direct attacks of the most spectacular they can arrange on the West.

Then again, the Jihad may become subsumed into Iran's continuing efforts to become the dominant power in the Middle East and Islam in general (despite the gulf between Shia and Sunni).

Sorry for the meandering rant, but 9/11 was the beginning of a larger war as surely as 12/7/41 was the point where two regional wars boiled over into a general war. So, being in a new world war now for some seventeen years, my thoughts are still directed towards how to win it, and when it might be possible.

TVAG

We were in training to go to Northern Ireland the following month, I'd just come off the range and one of the lads said "come and look at the TV" I remember saying "I think the Ireland deployment will be cancelled" sure enough we were soon to deploy on the first of many trips to Afghanistan.

I am made to re-experience the outrage I and so many others felt. And should still feel.

Yes, very much so … And if the West can just keep the terrorists/jihadis/radicals/fundamentalists/"bad guys", etc. in their own lands/regions/countries fighting[and killing as well] each other, the local forces and the locals, etc. That is the best I think we can hope for at this time.

They have to decide to change. We can't do it for them. Until that time, they will basically be primarily killing off each other based on religion, tribes, ethnicity, etc.

Amen L4, Amen

I was in my dorm room in Tokyo..saw the first burning tower live on my 34cm CRT and thought it was a simulation, a what if..saw the second plane hit live and heard the English commentary under the Japanese, they went pretty quickly to concluding it was an attack after that..after that I'd tune into AFN Japan and listen to Rush Limbaugh's show and PBS/NPR back to back every day. I really admired that the US military was balanced in its news coverage. I remember US bases in Japan went into "lockdown" and had armored vehicles parked outside for a while. Then the whole world changed.