The 19 hijackers who crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, loom large in the minds of men and women who have enlisted in the military over the years.
Twenty years ago, on Sept. 11, 2001, in attacks orchestrated by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, nearly 3,000 people lost their lives. What followed was a vow by then-President George W. Bush to enact revenge on the terrorists responsible and two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Afghanistan campaign ended last month, 10 years after bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan. More than 2,400 U.S. military personnel died in the 20-year war, not including Afghan and allied casualties, spanning a time when people who were children in elementary school at the time of the terrorist attacks joined the military.
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Jake Bequette, a former NFL player who became a soldier serving in Iraq and is now running for Senate in Arkansas, was in the seventh grade when the Sept. 11 attacks happened.
“I knew that whenever my NFL career was over that I wanted to serve my country,” he told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview. “I felt a profound call later in life. And that was going to manifest itself as service in uniform. I wanted to serve in the infantry. I wanted to go to ranger school, and I wanted to stand up and put myself at risk for my beliefs.”
Bequette said that day “shattered” the “sense of invincibility” of the United States that was at “the forefront of my mind” for years.
Bobby Goodman, a 10-year-old in fifth grade at the time of 9/11, similarly told the Washington Examiner he had trouble processing what had happened.
“I think it was just the innocent mind of a child,” he said.
Goodman is a fourth-generation Marine who enlisted at the age of 17 with his mother’s consent.
“I kind of just had it in my head,” Goodman said. “I’m like, I’m gonna go make a difference too. I’m, I’m going to go over there. And you know, this is when I exactly decided I was going to go infantry and I, you know, decided I was going to be a machine gunner. So I went to a recruiter. I walked in there, the recruiter he’s like, I’ve never seen, somebody just like, yep, whatever, sign me up. Let’s go. I could not wait to be a part of what I thought was going to be, not a solution, but definitely, more of a real reaction to the events of that day.”
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Paul Cusack was on the West Coast when he witnessed images from the Sept. 11 attacks from afar.
He didn’t immediately enlist, waiting until 2009 when he was in his late 30s and coming off of a divorce after passing up on previous opportunities to join the military. But once Cusack decided to enlist, he said he did so with one purpose in mind.
“To participate in the hunt, capture, and potential killing of Osama bin Laden,” Cusack said.
“I really felt motivated about that,” he added. “I thought he was continuing to present a direct threat to national security.”
