The day was cool, but the sun was warm, making my shoulders itch under my uniform. I stood at parade rest, an uncomfortable position of half-attention with my hands clasped at the waist behind my back. On my right was a small table with two oil lamps and a notebook filled with with names of those who have been killed in action the past nine years. On my left hung an American flag, on which were written the names of all emergency personnel killed when the Twin Towers fell. On the other side of the flag plaza hung a similar flag, with the names of the people killed at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United 93. In between were myself and my office mates, paying our respects to the victims of the attacks on 9/11 and all those that have fallen defending us from a repeat performance. Standing guard over the memorial, we honored their memory, and paused to reflect on the road we've traveled through the aftermath.
As I stood immobile, my thoughts wandered across the topic at hand. 11 September 2001 I was sitting in my high school psychology class, watching the world change along with everyone else. Outside the window planes headed to various destinations around the country were ordered to land, leaving racetrack contrails in the sky. Not once did I imagine that the events of that day would draw me, nine years later, to Afghanistan, fighting the same fight that started that day in New York. My stream of consciousness wandered the path I'd walked from that day to this one. I thought about all the actions taken in the name of defending America from further terrorist actions. I wondered if the people who's names were printed on the flags I was honoring would approve of what we've done in their names, what we continue to do.
Nine years of war. Nine years. My children do not know America in peace. My entire adult life has played out under the spectre of conflict. The length speaks to the immensity of the task, but also to all the mis-steps we've made.
No one - no one - expected American troops to be in the same theatre of war for nearly a decade. If someone predicted nearly a decade of combat lay ahead of us on September 12th, they would have been ridiculed. Mocked. Because it would have been ridiculous. The military machine was powering into high gear, and we were told the conflict would be mere months, even weeks, of American troops steam rolling the mountains of Afghanistan flat, crushing the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Osama in their wake. Iraq was immaterial. The enemy had painted concentric circles on Afghanistan, and the U.S. was warming up for target practice. We were not likely to miss.
Unsurprisingly, the resistance was quickly crushed. But what we didn't know until too late was that we didn't crush them effectively enough. Distracted by our own success and playing second fiddle to the "real" shooting war in Iraq, we allowed our enemy to slink away, bloody but unbowed, struck down but not destroyed. We squandered the time we had to make sure there was no way for them to crawl back to their former stronghold. And here, nine years later, we're paying for letting them off the mat daily with lives of soldiers both U.S. and Coalition. We're paying for our failure to secure the country then with added years of conflict, money and responsibility. And nine years later, we find ourselves in a position to ask, "Is this worth it?" On 11 September 2001, no one could have imagined that this question could be anything but rhetorical. How do we answer it now?
I mused about what I would tell my children about this day and it's consequences when they were old enough to grasp it's magnitude. How will I explain hate and terrorism, pre-emptive strikes and IEDs, asymmetric warfare and little white headstones, when I don't fully understand them myself? Can I adequately word the confusion, and subsequent nausea, felt throughout America as the realization that two planes striking two towers in less than 20 minutes could not possibly be an accident? How can I explain the enormous courage displayed as the FDNY rushed into a building doomed to die, when every natural human instinct was to run away? How do I convey the black grief in the sound of 343 emergency beacons chirping in unison, their owners buried under falling rubble, never to rise from the street? Is it possible to transmit the pure hatred towards our government and their actions circa 2005 to someone that didn't experience it themselves?
My relief stepped lightly up the marble steps and stood in front of me. He spoke quietly. "I stand ready to relieve you." I replied, "I stand relieved." In normal circumstances, the soldier would have rendered salute, but being a civilian and unable to return the courtesy, he did not extend it, instead exchanging curt nods of acknowledgment. I stepped aside and he took my place, folding one hand behind his back, the other holding the barrel of his rifle skyward, the stock balanced on the ground. Down the steps for a group photo, and then back to the office, and working towards bringing us home sooner than later.
And as I stepped away from the flag plaza, I wondered, where will my steps take me from here?
Wow is too small a word. Courtesy of reddit.com.
/salute
Out here.
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