History rewrote the terms
Updated: Sep 12
This week, we talked about how teachers are trying to figure out the best way to teach the September 11 attack as a history lesson. George W. Bush is at the National September 11 Memorial today, but before he left, he had some things he wanted to get off his chest.
His presidential center has paintings he's done about 9/11 on display through the end of the month. This week, he and Condoleezza Rice talked about the anniversary.
We also heard from a Navy veteran who was in training at the time.
He, the president and Rice all say they had similar reactions to the first plane hitting the tower: This was all just a mistake.
The Navy vet, Jared Lyon, says he was five weeks into boot camp. They saw TV clips that night and thought this was an elaborate training scenario. He says some people got excited like they might be playing a video game until their commander told them they were watching real video from earlier in the day.
"It was almost unimaginable an attack on U.S. soil could be real."
George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice say they both thought the first plane hitting the tower could have been an accident. You've probably seen the picture of Bush' chief of staff telling him a second plane had hit the other tower.
I remember people questioning why he didn't have a stronger reaction. I imagined they wanted him to get up, throw a chair through the window and yell, "We're doomed!" before jumping out. You know, to help the kids stay calm.
The pilots on Air Force One first took Bush, media and everyone else riding with him to Louisiana then were diverted to Omaha.
"Nothing wrong with that," he explained.
But his national security team said he should give a speech to the country.
"I do, but I'm damn sure not going to do it from Omaha, Nebraska. I thought that would be a psychological victory for those who attacked us."
So he flew back to Washington for his first speech.
The current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was stationed at Andrews Air Force base. He went through the Air Force's Top Gun school, but really did explain that, tragically, the Air Force's school does not involve any beach volleyball.
He said he was sitting in a meeting when an enlisted man came in and said a plane hit the World Trade Center. He also thought it might have been an accident, saying he must have gotten the weather forecast wrong.
He went into the lounge, turned on the TV to see what happened. He saw the second plane come from the corner of the shot and hit the other building.
"In our squadron, you could have heard a pin drop. In what seemed like an eternity, and it was probably just a few seconds, we instantly knew the United States of America was under attack."
All these people--from the president to a Navy cadet--were expecting a routine day.
They say it's important to remember the passengers on Flight 93 were expecting a routine day, too. They hadn't enlisted. Caine says service members know what they're signing up for. First responders--even doing so heroically, trying to rescue people from the World Trade Center--know what they're signing up for.
Flight 93 passengers just got on a plane for San Francisco. Caine says they found out what was happening and "had the courage to do what needed to be done."
Instead of serving during peacetime, Lyon, the Navy vet, said "history rewrote the terms." He said some veterans wound up carrying pride, some carried anger, some carried grief. "Many of us carry all three."
All of the speakers said actions like that fill them with hope for America. We might argue with each other incessantly, but when it's needed, we still step up with "selfless courage."
While so many of us have adopted arguing with strangers about politics in comments sections as our favorite hobby, they also say the generation coming up now has more civic pride.
Caine says a lot of young Americans "raised their hand" to join the all-volunteer armed forces, and he's humbled to know 2.8 million Americans joined the military "who could go do something else with their lives, but they choose to do something extraordinary every single day."
He compares them to the people on Flight 93. They "saw a chance to do something important, saw the chance to serve something greater than themselves knowing full well they were signing up to go into combat to defend this nation, our nations, our virtues, our interests."
I, meanwhile, saw a chance to try a new flavor of Blue Bell and also wrote a blog. We all serve the country in our way.
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