Today Stephanie and I feel lucky to live of the land a a Christmas tree farmer and nursery operator and to live in a country that allows us to be what we want and do what we do. The following is definitely not intended to be a political statement-I don’t make political statements.
10 years ago I was a Senior Chief Electronics Technician in the US Navy and was on board a fast combat support ship steaming toward the Suez Canal in the Red Sea. We had been deployed for five months in the Persian Gulf in support of the oil embargo/blockade of Iraq and in the Indian Ocean off the “Stans” for exercises with NATO and our battle group. We were on our way to a much needed liberty visit in Turkey and then home.
It was evening as I walked through the Chief’s Mess after my treadmill running hour and looked up at the TV to see the first of the twin towers on fire and falling. (Thanks to my great technicians we were able to watch CNN live on our satellite TV system)
As the rest of the horror played out and the talking heads began to surmise that this was the work of Al Qeida, I had many mixed feelings. Horror, dread, sympathy, and disbelief were the main ones. I knew that within hours we would be going back where we came from. Sure enough, within a couple hours we were doing a course reversal headed to an area off Afghanistan. We were the first ship on station.
In the days that led up to the first missile strikes and bombing of Afghanistan’s mountainous region, I had a lot of time to think and wonder why we were terrorized and why were we here. Unlike most of my shipmates, I did not feel strong anger or feel that we needed to seek revenge. I had known for many years that our US foreign policy of helping other countries, but at the same time meddling in their affairs and dictating their actions, would someday lead to more terrorism. I actually felt that the best thing we could do was ignore the whole thing. I could see in our future a conflict that would never really end. In a way, we continue the jihad as much as the other side does.
It turns out that my feeling was genuine. Not only have we lost thousands more lives in Afghanistan and, because of our fears, Iraq, but Osama Bin Laden has done what he set out to do. He had cost us a couple trillion dollars in wars and a couple trillion more on vast homeland security measures that helped bring our economy to it’s knees…
I hope we learn from what has happened to let other countries do as they please. It is still right to give aid and help in disasters as we always have..that it what makes us great….long live the United States as long as we learn to tolerate and get along.
