Operation AXIOM: 9/11

Seventeen years ago to the day, 11 September 2001, the Twin Towers fell, the Pentagon partially collapsed, & "Let's roll" entered the lexicon, epitomizing the readiness & ability of ordinary citizens to rise to the occasion, overcome their fear, & fight back against fanatical murderers. The slow-burning war between the United States & the Salafi jihadist terrorist organization al-Qaeda ("the Base") suddenly set the world on fire. To anyone who has come of age in the twenty-first century, it is difficult to explain the fool's paradise of these United States at the turn of the millennium, a world in which the events of 9/11—the "day of fire"—were unimaginable instead of historical fact, a world in which the notions of an endless war in Afghanistan & a "Great Game" in the Middle East against Russia were, at best, fanciful.

On the day itself, incomprehension & horror were the predominant emotions. Anger, sadness, & solidarity followed on 12 September & the days thereafter. There was a certain shock & numbness that persisted until American combat operations in Afghanistan began in October. (Operation ENDURING FREEDOM—Afghanistan would continue until December 2014, though Americans continue to fight & die in Afghanistan under Operation FREEDOM'S SENTINEL.) It is now difficult to imagine a world in which Americans are not fighting & dying in Afghanistan, & even harder to envision a world in which jihadist terrorism is not a threat. It is sadly all too easy to imagine a world in which the Twin Towers are all but forgotten, a world in which Americans view their political opponents as "the enemy," instead of the jihadists who murdered three thousand of our fellow citizens on a sunny early autumn day in the first year of the third Christian millennium.

11 September 2001: The world changed completely on 9/11 & the world didn't change at all on 9/11, seventeen years ago today.

The Wayback Machine Tour of 9/11
Patriot Day '17 / Patriot Day '15 / Patriot Day '13 / Patriot Day '11

Bonus! Song o' Patriot Day
Toby Keith, "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)" from Unleashed (The Last Angry Man)