A Personal Account of 9/11
What we witnessed, what we should've learned, and how to honor the fallen
“Will you please report to the main office?”
Those staticky words, preceded by the names of my classmates, echoed over and over again from old junior high school loudspeakers 20 years ago this Saturday. They still echo in my mind today.
The drumbeat of student dismissals banged on for what seemed like an eternity. Growing up a short 40-minute drive from lower Manhattan in a New Jersey suburb of city commuters, each call hinted at the worst of possible fates for my classmates.
One of them would never see his father again. Others would return home to hugs and kisses from parents vowing never again to speak of what they had seen.
In a new piece at The Federalist on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, I share my account of and reflections on that day, elucidate the lessons learned in the ensuing two decades, and suggest the proper way to honor the fallen.
As I conclude in part:
Our worst enemies could have asked for nothing more than what we have given them — to expend maximum blood and treasure in pursuit of goals that were ever-shifting and unreachable, if even identified.
While we frittered away our dominant geopolitical position, China ascended, becoming our most formidable adversary. To boot, we created a raft of national security and intelligence powers that have been abused and turned on Americans who would dare to raise just the kinds of criticisms raised herein.
That is perhaps the worst mistake our enemy goaded us into. We have diminished liberty and justice in an effort that was supposed to defend the country against enemies who threatened those ideals.
How should we honor the fallen after these dejecting decades?
We should be America once again — not a decadent, woke, rump kowtower to a gulag state; not a briber of mullocrats that bends over backward so as not to hurt the feelings of seventh-century throat-slitters who see weakness as an invitation to attack; not a nation that puts its warriors through struggle sessions, makes them social workers and babysitters in hellholes, and asks that they do it all while hamstrung with suicidal rules of engagement that privilege their enemies.
We should once again be a nation that cultivates excellence; that instills in its people confidence; that creates patriots. America — exceptional in the history of mankind — must be loved, cherished, and defended.
The United States is a great country. It needs defending. If our current trajectory continues apace, there will be little left to defend, and even fewer left willing to defend it.
Those who have died over these last 20 years must not have died in vain. Let us honor them with how we live.
Read the whole thing here.
Separately, I delivered a related monologue for AMAC’s “The Weingarten Report,” which you can view below: