We are not alone – Remembering 9/11

Like many Americans, 9/11 had a major effect on our lives at the time.

On the morning of September 11^th 2001, Greg was an extremely junior officer serving the first months of his first tour of duty on a US Coast Guard cutter patrolling off the coast of Haiti.  He was performing counter-migrant and counter-drug operations as a ship driver and a boarding officer.  24 hours later Greg was off the Coast of Louisiana boarding cargo ships looking for bombs.  A year later he was recruited into the new field of counter-terrorism operations in the US Coast Guard.

Tiffany was a senior cadet at the Coast Guard Academy getting ready to graduate and take her first tour onboard a cutter stationed in the Pacific Northwest.  The Coast Guard missions she had trained for 4 years to accomplish were no longer the primary missions she would perform in that job.

Since then a decade has passed.  We received our honorable discharges, Greg started and sold a business and Tiffany became a leading sailing instructor.  We sailed across the Pacific Ocean.  A few months ago Greg was in New York for 36 hours and he gave up some sleep to see the World Trade Center site.  Neither of us had ever been and it seemed a good idea to at least see the location where the event that shaped our military careers happened:

We’re rebuilding, which is the right response.  We need to remember what happened but not be crippled by the memory.  We need to respect the event without squabbling over the politics of it.  Perhaps at this point we’re supposed to say how the events of September 11^th still affect us to this day, and in some ways they do, but this blog entry is not about that.

It’s about the fact that Australians call it 9/11 and how significant that fact is.

Australians, New Zealanders, the British and even the Polynesian islanders refer to the date of the terrorist attacks as “nine-eleven.”  “So what?” You say, “everyone does.”  No, actually, they don’t.  There are several little unique quirks in our language that make us…well US.  One of those little quirks is that we refer to the date in the format of: month, day, year.  In other words, September 11^th to Australians should be “11/9.”  It isn’t though.  In what so far has been a unique instance in the countries we visited, People change the way they say a date to conform to the way we Americans say it only for this particular day.

We would like to take this opportunity to remind you of a few facts that have come to our attention in the past few months.

One:

The innocent slain in the Terrorist actions of 9/11 did not only affect America.  New York is an international city and as such, 372 citizens from more than 90 different countries died.   Yes we lost more.  We lost a LOT more than anyone else but tell that to the family of an Indian or Japanese citizen killed in the attacks.

 

Two:

The world changed on 9/11 because the world started looking at terrorism in a completely different light.  Though the reactions of the other countries may have been different than the United States, many countries did react to those events and still do to this day.  We have spent the past week with headlines on every paper we’ve seen being about the anniversary of the attacks.

 

Three

 

 

 

Before we started traveling whenever we heard on the news that “Allied forces” were fighting in some horrible battle, we assumed that meant mostly US troops with 2 Canadian medics and a British pilot to make things look good.  Not so.  Australian snipers are on the front lines and the Danes fought and died in those same far off deserts.  The Germans controlled regional Command North in Afghanistan and The British have acquitted themselves quite well there.  They have the body count, both their own and the enemy’s, to prove it.  The blood of their sons and daughters has been spilled on the exact same battlefields as those of our American soldiers and I defy you to pick one from the other.

 

America, we are not alone in this.  Sometimes it feels like it because we are, to be fair, a good bit isolationist and we are by far the largest western power with the largest standing military.  Also, let’s be real here, we’re the butt-kickers of the West and we’re pretty darn good at it.  But we are not alone.  And the support of our allies has not come without great cost to them.

We just thought you should know.  It certainly helps us sleep better at night.

 

Like this article?  Learn more about the history of the American military in the South Pacific Islands by clicking on “Battle Fortress: South Pacific”

For more on what passes as airport security on a remote island check out our article on “Polynesian TSA”

 

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are travelling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures.  If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!