Some lessons from 9/11

[Jack Burton]

1) the biggest gun in the world might be useless unless you have ammo for it, ready to rock and roll.

2) Guns, knifes, planes are just the tools we use -- people are the weapons.

3) Sometimes the definition of "winning" doesn't include you coming home alive to your family.

F-16 pilot was ready to give her life on Sept. 11 - The Washington Post

 

[T.Lex]

Great link.

I remember in the days after 9/11 a friend of mine and I (both in VERY white-collar kinds of jobs) had rifles in our trunks, just because we didn't know what the next attack might be. Plenty of soft targets then, and now.

Back then, for me, it was an SKS. (Don't laugh! It would get the job done!) This past weekend, I put my CETME in the trunk as we approach the 10-year anniversary.

You just never know.

 

[crispy]

4. Compliance with the bad guys is always the best option. Don't fight back. Let the police sort it out.

 

[pute62]

+1 to crispy, we have become a bunch of pussies! How much better are we 10 years after???

 

[Toole]

4. Compliance with the bad guys is always the best option. Don't fight back. Let the police sort it out.

Unfortunately this is sooo true. Even being in Iraq, when we living on our COP (from Nov 10 - July 11) we would get mortars, rockets, ect.. shot at us, and they send us to look for the POO not to where we had intel the actual launchers lived. They would watch Iraqi's emplace IED's less than 100m outside of our COP on the aerostat and brush them off and ask why our route clearance team got blown up later that night.

All of the higher up authorities here are afraid to let us protect ourselves and pursue those that we know are still attacking U.S. Forces for fear of falling under investigation and it looking bad when it comes time for them to get promoted. The EOF is ridiculous as well, if the time was there and you actually followed it to a T, the enemy would have already done their deed and people would be hurting.

Wars are not won when you're only conducting defensive operations, but they have taken away our ability to conduct offensive ops through the years and policies that come down, and new lieutenant colonels, colonels, and generals that want to have good looking OER's for promotion.... at least here in Iraq. Afghanland is another story, but even in the next couple of months they're going to be coming under new EOF procedures as well and will be sitting ducks like we are here.

/rant

 

[youngda9]

+1 to crispy, we have become a bunch of pussies! How much better are we 10 years after???

I agree...too many city slickers and not enough country boys these days.

 

[J_Wales]

Lessons from September 11:


Never underestimate what radical muslim jihadists are willing to do to destroy us. What we experienced on September 11, 2001 is only a small sample of their goal that lies within.


War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end.

-Jackson

Technically, the quote from Jackson is a lesson from well before his time.... but one we forget.

 

[J_Wales]

One day a lady finds a snake beside her woodpile, outside in the winter cold. It's almost frozen to death.

She brings the snake into her home and warms him by the fire. As the snake returns to life, he bites the lady.

She asks him, Why did you bite me after I saved your life? And the snake says, Because it's my nature.