The images are seared into my soul. Towers to dust. My Pentagon burning. The falling man. Shanksville.
A quiet rage building in the core of my bones, wishing I was still in the fight, longing to be part of the crew. The blue sky that used to be my sanctuary empty and silent save for Combat Air Patrol stationed overhead our own shores. Loaded for bear and praying not to be called in hot on a target of unprecedented consequence.
The SEALs finally lopped the head off the snake but others will grow in its place. We will be challenged in ways we haven’t even imagined yet, for as the world shrinks her violence gets closer. America can no longer count on the seas to keep evil at a distance. It walks among us in both domestic and foreign forms.
Never forget the day our own aircraft became missiles and we were attacked not by a country but by a fanatic hatred that had no uniform, no face, no home. Remember those we lost and honor our brothers who tried to save them.
For a brief while we pulled together, forgot our politics, and raised the flag high. Too soon all that faded and little more than a decade later we are more divided than ever, self-centered and worried about offending those that would kill us for believing in God and country.
Semper vigilans.
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