VanDiver is a Navy veteran and founder of the Truman National Security Project San Diego Chapter who lives in Clairemont.
“We do this all the time in countries all over the world. Now it’s happening to us.”
That’s what a man with whom I was attending my initial training (A School) for my Navy job as a fire controlman callously said as the first tower collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001. I was 17 years old when I walked into the school building break room and heard that comment from a guy, who made a lewd gesture as we watched the TV in horror.
After that morning, everything changed.
We went to Force Protection Condition D, which meant everything was shut down, civilian cars couldn’t access the base, and myriad other measures were adopted to protect our bases and assets from attack. Ships deployed almost immediately. And I was sent to Millington, Tenn., to become a base police officer.
There I was at 17 with a badge, a squad car and a gun. I had no driver’s license, I had no way of knowing that my entire life would be shaped by this experience and I had no idea that my colleague’s words would be seared into my memory 20 years later as I think about the incredible sacrifices that were made.
Nearly a month after those towers collapsed, we went to war in Afghanistan, a war that recent history has shown had no end game planned. I had never even heard of Afghanistan at that time, and now some of my dearest friends are Afghan.
I spent 12 years in the Navy. During that time, I earned degrees and certifications in homeland security, emergency management, anti-terrorism, domestic security management and more. I became active in security industry networking organizations, some legitimate and rewarding, and some I later learned were a total farce. I left the Navy, found a career path in civilian life, and engaged civically.
But my generation, the oft-castigated millennials, came of age in a changed world, thanks almost exclusively to the events of 9/11. I’ve visited the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon and the exhibit at the Newseum, both in Washington, D.C. One World Trade Center (also known as Freedom Tower) exists now where the twin towers once stood. Each time I have visited, I can’t help but think that the people who fight wars are so rarely the people who make the decision to go to war.
When I think about 9/11, I think often about how my generation has borne so much of the pain associated with it. I think about how we are raising children who have only ever known that there was a war going on, and how we really stopped thinking about the definition of success as we adjusted to the permanence of the situation.
We went into Iraq and Afghanistan without a plan to leave. And while there were numerous istrations who could have, who should have, created a strategy that honored the sacrifices they asked so many to make, they did not. Instead, my generation of veterans and those who are still active were left to pick up the pieces when our repeated attempts to get out of Afghanistan fell apart.
On the eve of the 20th anniversary of sitting in that break room watching the towers fall, I got a text message from Afghanistan that said, “My last wish is if I don’t make it please please try to get out my wife and kids.” After two decades, our time in Afghanistan was drawing to an ugly end, and my friend, his wife, his 3-year-old and his 8-month-old were stuck there.
Those were, I thought, my friend Lucky’s last words to me. Those words propelled me to begin working alongside veterans of all demographics, political affiliations and religions. Together, we’ve saved lives and proven that government doesn’t have all the answers and can be successfully augmented by volunteers half a world away, whether they asked for it or not. We reclaimed the final days of the war, and reasserted our own experiences, relationships and values in the moment.
We did something that our country has not yet learned to do: We started with the end in mind. It was mostly millennials who stepped up to self-activate to help in Afghanistan. We coordinated across myriad efforts doing what they could to make a difference in the lives of those who helped us in Afghanistan.
Lucky and his family made it out in part due to our efforts but mostly due to their own tenacity, resilience and drive.
So where does that leave me, or any of us who served and have to sit with the discomfort of futility or the sting of grief for those lost, now? It’s impossible to boil down the feelings of my generation in one essay. There are too many feelings, too many memories — too much of everything — to sufficiently honor the sacrifices we all made.
But here’s where I do take some solace: My generation, the one that fought the war, that died in the war, is likely going to be the generation making decisions about the next war. And I know that we’ll not take those moments lightly. Instead, as we demonstrated through our work to help our Afghan partners escape in the final days, we’ll start first with the end in mind.
