Reflections

This Sunday is the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. Where were you? Most of us can answer that question. A startling number of young people cannot remember, they were likely too young to remember exactly what they were doing and what those smoking towers meant to the rest of us. I remember where I was, I was a new airman stationed in Aviano AB, Italy, looking forward to a peace time career and the benefits of serving overseas. My memories of 9/11 are a little chaotic, and filled with the opinions and worthless whining befitting any nineteen year old. I remember being righteously angry, and a little confused about exactly what we were talking about when it came to Taliban, Afghanistan, Islamic extremism...technical school in intelligence did not put much emphasis on unconventional warfare at that time.

The day we bombed Afghanistan was my twentieth birthday. I remember being called in to work for a night shift because a co-worker was sick, and dragging my feet. I had just made the world's deadliest margarita (you can drink in Italy at 18, so yes, it was legal!), and hated the thought of going in for yet another twelve hour shift. I thought what we were doing in Afghanistan was right, righteous, and beyond reproach. Even as the War on Terror extended beyond Afghanistan's borders--as the Patriot Act was passed and the Iraq war started--I believed we were doing the right thing.

Ten years provides a lot of perspective. When I celebrate my thirtieth birthday we will have officially been at war with the Taliban for a decade. How do I feel about that? I don't know, in all honesty. I sit in the aftermath of Anders Behring Brievik's attack on Oslo and wonder. What could have been different? Could our reaction have been moderated, even in the face of such an audacious attack? What have we given up in the name of security? These are all questions I cannot answer; though I feel now, later, I am better prepared and informed to consider them honestly.

My superintendent from that time has written an article for a Las Vegas online magazine. He is much better at encapsulating what we felt at that time. When I was a relative child, a petulant airman with my finger up my nose, more concerned with boys and parties than other things, he was in the midst of what was happening at Aviano. I recommend reading his article, which is called Rage Without Resolution. Reading this article, I go back to those times: the highly guarded base, the long nights, the endless frustration. It also makes me think about how we as a society have become wiser about the effects of war, not just the changes in warfare itself.