Twenty years since 9/11

In just three days we will remembering the twentieth anniversary of the worst attack against our homeland. In a popular shortcut we know it as 9/11 when American airliners were flown into the twin towers in New York City. Somewhere around 3000 Americans were killed that day. It could have been worse if the fourth airliner had crashed into our U.S. Capital building instead of a vacant field in Pennsylvania due to the efforts of heroic passengers on board. All thanks to Muslim jihadists of the Al Qaeda tribe led by Saudi Arabian Prince Osama bin Laden.

We who lived through that horrible event, watching on TV, will never forget. Then over the past twenty years we have seen a memorial built on the towers site and a yearly remembrance. Burned into each of our minds is what we were doing that day when America was attacked.

I’ll never forget that this old corporate pilot was just approaching Kansas City, when I heard ATC, Air Traffic Control, order the pilot of a Cessna Citation ahead of me to land at Kansas City Downtown Airport. The pilot replied that Kansas City Downtown Airport was not his destination and he didn’t want to land there. The words “This a national emergency and you are directed to land immediately!” came in reply. Words that I had never heard before in my 58 years of flying and that I hope to never hear again. ATC then cleared me on to my destination which was just on the eastern outskirts of the City.

Upon landing and seeing my passengers off on their mission I walked into the operations building. There gathered around the television was a group of local pilots and together we watched the second airliner fly into the second tower. I knew in my heart that again our country was at war.

It was again three days later that I was able to fly back home. That too was an eerie trip as the air traffic radios were nearly silent. Only very few were cleared to fly and oddly there were just no contrails generated by high flying airliners. I was tickled when I called into the McCook Airport and Shirley was all concerned to tell me that I shouldn’t be flying. Yes I was legal. Bless my friend.

We all have followed the twenty-year war in Afghanistan since that day. This country seemed to be united in supporting our troops in the search to find and punish bin Laden. He of course with the help of the locals escaped Afghanistan but our special forces tracked him to Pakistan where he suffered his just punishment.

The mission was complete at that time but our government elected to stay and nation-build in Afghanistan. I truly believe that our stay in that primitive country did a world of good in liberating the women who had been forced to live under Sharia law. Then we poured billions of dollars into building military bases and equipping what we believed we created a viable government and functioning military.

Progressives in this country decided that our stay in Afghanistan was too long, “Our longest war”! Never mind that the U.S. still has thousands of troops in both South Korea and Germany and both those wars ended much longer than twenty years ago. So with the election of Joe Biden to the Presidency, surrounded by his progressive cohorts, a date was set and our military left Afghanistan a country embroiled in turmoil. The Afghan government we had set up and the Afghan Military that we created all collapsed in a week to the Taliban swarming out of their safe haven in Pakistan.

For this old retired Airman that served in Vietnam, the Afghanistan departure is just as embarrassing as our departure from Vietnam. Actually worse as we left American citizens and former allies trapped there. They will now be held hostage and a large majority of our former friends that helped us in our battles will be executed, along with their families, by the Muslim jihadists. Their version of the will of Allah.

An even more acute observation given by Lara Logan of Fox News states “We are committing national suicide on the world stage right in front of everybody’s eyes. This is the greatest defeat of the world’s superpower that anyone has ever seen. It is with shame and it is drenched in the blood of betrayal. And we are isolated on the world stage and we are weak because of it and the only people who benefit are America’s enemies.”

Keep the tragic events of the last twenty years in mind as we commutate the twenty anniversary of the attack on America on Saturday, September 11th. Then look around at the good life we live here in Southwest Nebraska and give thanks for our good fortune. Remember all the above when you cast your vote a year from November. God Bless.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail