(Pentagon, 11 September 2001. I thought I lost my whole GDIP Budget Staff. Instead, I lost my pals in the CNO IP).

I have already been in tears this morning. I must be getting soft. Or just old.

One of the cable networks was re-running the coverage from The Day sixteen years ago on the early coverage. I didn’t mean to do it, since you already know I am a cynical old coot. But watching, I felt the fat blobs of tears running down my cheeks, watching the events of that morning.

I know, I know, I talk about it every year, in one way or another. No reason to elaborate, any more than a simple question to Dad about where he was on Pearl Harbor day, and his matter of fact response. He knew. No one forgets the big stuff. You really only have to say once to galvanize the things that change your life forever.

Suffice it to say, I will go over to Arlington later to say “Hi, I remember” to my pals who died on That Day, and remember all that happened in what followed that chaotic event. Maybe the most surreal moment was the ringside seat that night, having a drink late after getting back to the BOQ that lovely fall day colored with horror.

I stepped out on the balcony of the Fort Myer officer’s quarters where I was staying at the time, and watched the Pentagon burn.

I had worked there for almost a decade. It was pretty crazy. And visiting the graves at Arlington each year, and remembering the march down the big hill from the Old Chapel at Fort Myer to see my shipmates interred when the graves were still red with Virginia clay makes this an intensely emotional day. I will leave it at that.

We are still at war sixteen years later. I have no idea how this will end.

But do know one thing. Those bastards will never defeat us.

And if I have to go to The Show again, I will.

Copyright 2017 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com