09/10/2026
Twenty-five years ago, the world shifted course.
Whatever track we were on before the morning of September 11, 2001, disappeared beneath the destruction, rubble, and smoke rising above New York City, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon.
For the more than 3.3 million Americans who would serve in uniform in the decades that followed, those attacks were a stark demonstration of a dangerous world—one that demanded a strong and prepared national defense.
I joined the U.S. Air Force in 1992 and later transferred to the Oregon Air National Guard. In a small twist of fate, I returned from a voluntary assignment in Kuwait on September 5, 2001—just six days before the attacks.
On September 11, I was in Garrison, finishing paperwork and looking forward to returning to my classroom at Western Oregon University.
Then the attacks began.
Within hours, our unit was activated. F-15s from Portland were assigned by the Western Air Defense Sector, and suddenly we were effectively at war—searching the skies for additional hijacked airliners and other threats.
The 116th Air Control Squadron, now inactivated, was mobilized for 24 consecutive months. Some of us deployed to Air Route Traffic Control Centers as intercept liaisons. Others deployed throughout the Pacific Northwest to improve radar and radio coverage.
We filled gaps. We protected critical infrastructure. We prepared for attacks we hoped would never come.
In 2003, I transferred from a homeland security mission at Tyndall Air Force Base to augment the 728th Air Control Squadron. I helped prepare the unit for war, flew to Kuwait, and then convoyed into Baghdad.
Iraq was unforgettable—a strange combination of Groundhog Day and the Wild West. That deployment taught me lessons I still carry: how to accept loss, live with imperfect choices, and keep moving forward when every available option is bad.
I returned to Iraq in 2005 and volunteered for Afghanistan with Oregon's 116th Air Control Squadron in 2006.
Combat deployments create a contradiction that is difficult to explain. When you're in the fight, you desperately miss home. When you're home, part of you feels guilty for not being in the fight.
I never deployed overseas again, but I continued serving in emergency management, preparedness, and homeland security. By the time I took off the uniform, I had accumulated nearly four and a half years in contingency operations across several regions of the world.
Those experiences changed me. They continue to inform how I see the world and my responsibilities as a public servant.
Like most of my brothers and sisters who chose to serve, I don't believe veterans are owed special reverence. Nor do I believe everyone must serve in uniform.
But I do believe more Americans might better understand citizenship if they spent some portion of their lives serving something larger than themselves.
And anniversaries like this stir something deeper.
Those of us who answered the call can become viscerally reactive to hypocrisy—to people who casually dishonor our brothers and sisters, who treat patriotism as a costume, and especially to armchair warriors eager to send someone else's sons and daughters into harm's way while choosing personal convenience over service themselves.
Service is not something you proclaim. It is something you do.
Patriotism is not measured by the size of the flag you wave, the volume of your rhetoric, or how often you invoke the military.
It is measured by what you are willing to give, the responsibilities you accept, and the sacrifices you make for people you may never meet.
This Friday, take a moment to reflect, remember, and respect those we loved and lost.
Remember, too, that for millions of Americans, the consequences of answering the call after September 11 continue to linger—in bodies, families, memories, and empty chairs.
Then ask yourself a harder question:
Am I doing everything I can to make America worthy of the price others have paid for its existence?
Twenty-five years after September 11, remembrance alone is not enough.
Let us renew our commitment to building a More Perfect Union—a nation of citizens rather than spectators; service rather than self-interest; and true patriotism rather than performance.
Let us be an America led by our aspirations instead of our fears.
That would be a remembrance worthy of the sacrifice.
