Two years ago today I found myself in Afghanistan, in the midst of war, reflecting on how much had changed in my life and the world, and how I had wound up in a distant land, embroiled in war. As I did on many occasions, I decided to write home to many of you and share my thoughts. Reading them now two years later, I find they ring true more than ever – and I'd like to share them with you again today.
We have to unite if we're to solve the problems before us. Today, on this most somber of days, I ask that you reflect back on all that's changed, remember those we lost nine years ago, and vow to strive towards the promise the future holds - we owe it to those who aren't with us today to do better.
After the jump is the letter I wrote home from Afghanistan on September 11th, 2008.
It was a gorgeous Tuesday morning with nary a cloud in the radiant September sky. I woke up nearly late for my History of the Silk Road class (the irony that I'm currently serving in a land once part of the Silk Road is not lost on me) and sprinted half a mile across campus. I can't recall what we covered in class that day – though I do remember being tremendously bored. Class ended around 10:15am, leaving me with about four hours before my next class. I leisurely walked back to my dorm, stopping at the campus mail center along the way. I wore a button down shirt, shorts, and flip-flops – standard autumn attire for a Hamilton college student. I turned into the mail center and strode towards my mailbox, paying little attention to the crowd of people huddled around a TV in the hallway.
Oddly enough, the presence of the TV was my first clue that something was amiss. The mail center never had a TV in the hallway before today. (The TV remained in place for the rest of my college career). For whatever reason – I still can't explain why 7 years later – I stopped midway to my mailbox, and turned to see what had the crowd so enraptured around the TV. I think it took about 5 minutes for the pictures on the screen to cross the threshold into reality. Tuned to ABC, the image displayed was split – on the left stood a lone tower of the World Trade Center billowing with smoke, on the right a hazy picture showed an unidentified building with the words "Pentagon, Washington DC" written at the bottom of the image.
"What's going on?" I asked no-one in particular. Before anyone could answer Peter Jennings announced "we're getting word now that the second tower will likely collapse at any moment." "WHAT!?! Second tower?!? Where's the first?!?" I cried out. A lone distraught voice responded between tears "its gone." Over the next ten minutes, through images alone, I learned the horrible fate of that morning – of planes colliding into buildings and announcing the end of our age of innocence.
At first, before I saw the images of passenger jets being turned into weapons, I thought the attack was an errant missile strike by a malfunctioning Russian or Chinese military unit. Islamic terrorism didn't even enter my mind. Even now, 7 years later, try as I might, I cannot successfully recall that initial level of blissful ignorance. Perhaps I'm inexcusably biased, but for me, "terrorism" has become synonymous with militant Islamic fundamentalism. Prior to that Tuesday, whenever I heard the word, my initial images split between the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and domestic white supremacist groups. Today, I instantly see a bearded Saudi man.
As the second twin tower tumbled before my tear filled eyes, I slipped into a prolonged daze. For the next several weeks I walked around school not living my life, but simply going through the motions. Everything and everyone in the new America seemed related to the attacks. We had entered a new a frightening time – the Post-9/11 age. What I remember most about those first few days was the profound silence during the day due to a lack of commercial air craft in the sky and the never ending television coverage dominating every single network, including MTV and ESPN. Like so many others, I spent countless hours in front of continuous news coverage of our strange new world.
I began contemplating leaving school and joining the military. 9/11 was my generation's Pearl Harbor. I come from a family of proud military service on both my mother's and father's side. At least one family member has served in every major American war dating back to the War for Independence. An innate obligation to serve began to boil. I suddenly found my life profoundly unfair. I was too lucky...I had benefited too much from a nation I had given nothing in return...my debt to society was too great to simply muddle through college and end up another wealthy lawyer. I couldn't justify my privileged life. I had attended only the best schools, grown up in safe enclaves of middle-class America, traveled the world, and enjoyed all the pleasures freedom brings. And for what? Ultimately, what good did ANY of that bring? As the days passed through my sophomore fall I struggled to answer those questions – a failure that nagged and tore at my soul.
"Mom, Dad, I've got to do something about this. I...I...I just can't...I don't see how I continue to do this. What good is my being here at college doing? How am I contributing? America doesn't need another kid with a liberal arts degree on his way to law school and the inevitable recycled American Dream...it needs soldiers...it needs fighters. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, did grandpa wait to be drafted? No. He joined immediately because our freedoms were under attack. He fulfilled his obligation, his duty, to serve. I've got to do the same. I cannot just rely on others to carry this burden. Though I be far from it, America needs her best and brightest."
"I keep thinking about all the people who perished in those towers. Some of them were tremendously successful and lived very wealthy lives. But...for what? When all was said and done, did ANY of their contributions matter? Just because they made un-Godly sums of money and found incredible success in their professions, did they leave the world a better place? Something I keep imagining is this scenario of all these rich and powerful men and women trapped in the towers, panicking. All their money and success and power that mattered up until those final moments, couldn't buy or change their fate. I keep seeing this image of these successful people collapsing into their own self despair, only to be calmed by a janitor – the man earning the lowest wage of any in their doomed group. Here's this guy, this janitor, who until today, NONE of these people paid any mind...and yet now, he's the hero. He's the one who knows the stairwells and the building's design better than any of them. He's the one keeping them calm and attempting to lead them to safety. Here's a guy who spent his final moments making a difference. And no amount of money or college education had ANYTHING to do with how he lived his final moments. I just...I just can't see how ANY of what I'm doing at college matters. I'm not making a difference. I'm not contributing to the cause. We were attacked, and rather than joining up as duty demands, I'm sitting here at school worrying about tests and papers that will never save a life or ever mean a damn thing in the grand scheme of anything...Mom, Dad...I'm seriously considering leaving school after this semester and joining the military."
My father expressed his desire to join in my place and his regret that his age made that impossible. My mother begged me to reconsider my decision. I couldn't. In addition to my innate desire to serve I could no longer ignore a future image – the children I hope to have one day. I vowed that I never want my children to know the fear I felt on that Tuesday 7 years ago. I want them to grow up blissfully ignorant – to only know a September 10, 2001 world. But...If all I did was go to college, graduate, proceed on to law school, earn the American Dream, but never serve...how could I look at them as a man and know that I stood by and let others do the heavy lifting to ensure their freedoms? The thought sickened me.
Flash forward to early December 2001. My best friend Patrick and I had traveled to the local mall to purchase presents for our "Secret Santa" group. The mall had three legs of stores attached to a central food court. Patrick and I agreed to give each other 15 minutes to buy our gifts and meet back in the food court. Being a more efficient shopper, I purchased my gift in record breaking time, and found myself strolling around the food court admiring the Christmas decorations. That's when I saw them. Three soldiers manning a recruitment booth, each standing tall and proud in their uniforms. I made a b-line for them and sparked up conversation with a young Private. "Hi, my name's Matt and I'm thinking of joining up. What are the chances I could join and guarantee a spot in Officer Candidate School?" (I had recently watched An Officer and A Gentleman and knew that enlisted soldiers could potentially earn their commission after successful completion of a grueling course in addition to basic training). As the Private struggled to answer my question (he was more familiar with the enlisted soldier route), the head recruiting Sergeant, SGT Davis, walked up and said "I'll take it from here Private." After we exchange pleasantries, I repeated my inquiry. Smiling, SGT Davis told me OCS wouldn't be a problem if I had the requisite college credits and achieved a certain standard on an Army aptitude test. Within minutes I had agreed to take the test and begin enlistment procedures...or as Patrick likes to tell the story "I left him alone for 10 minutes and he enlisted to the first recruiter he saw."
A month later, on 16 January 2002, I officially enlisted into the US Army National Guard as Private First Class Matthew Zeller. Four months later I jumped the whole OCS process and joined an ROTC unit through Syracuse University – a path better suited to allow me to finish college on time AND achieve my goal of earning an officer's commission by graduation. And seven years later, here I am, doing what I set out to do. I'm proud of my service and my participation in this conflict. For me, Afghanistan was always the just and necessary war. When I think of our enemies here, I inevitably remember 9/11. I remember the crippling fear I felt that day. I remember the visceral hatred that welled inside my body. I remember the absolute sorrow that overcame me as I drove down the Riverside Highway, rounded the bend at 125th Street, and stared out at an alien skyline a month after the attacks. I take all of these memories and emotions and I use them daily to remind myself of our purpose here – to right an unspeakable wrong. To prove to America's enemies that we will not go quietly into the night, that our torch of liberty burns eternal. And, to one day face the children I hope to have, look into their innocent eyes, and know that I did something meaningful and tangible to ensure their liberty.
Thus, on this seven year anniversary of that fateful day, I ask you do three things. First, please take a moment to reflect on all that we've lost and experienced since that day. Second, ask yourself what you've done to make a difference. My greatest qualm with our government since 9/11 was that instead of being asked to make sacrifices we were instructed to go shopping. And for the most part, I feel that's what we've done. We as a society have yet to truly endeavor to leave the world a better place than we found it. We will only continue to be a great nation so long as each of us – not just those in uniform – contributes to our betterment.
In that spirit, I ask one final thing...I ask that you commit yourself to something that will help leave our world better than we found it. Whether you send pens to Afghan children, join the military, volunteer on the local fire department, donate to charity, whatever...I ask that you commit yourself to something truly altruistic. 7 years ago today, in the ashes of our greatest modern devastation we rose together as a nation and bonded in the rarest of ways – for the first time in a generation, we spoke and acted as one people, indivisible, with universal beliefs of liberty and justice for all, resolved to right an egregious wrong. Today, I ask that we renew that vow.
Along our journey from that Tuesday to this Thursday, we lost that common spirit. If we are to win this struggle against freedom and liberty – for make no mistake, that is what this struggle in Afghanistan is ALL about – we need to unite like that once again. Yes, we've made some horrendous errors along our way. But that does not mean our cause here is unjust. Indeed, today we continue to struggle not just for Afghanistan's security but for our very way of life. Our enemies here do not just want us out of this nation – they want our existence eradicated from the planet. Our worldview is simply incompatible with their's. Sadly, our conflict is beyond diplomacy – we cannot negotiate with people who abhor our very essence. We must stand firm in our resolve to see Afghanistan succeed – otherwise we will cement ourselves to countless more autumn tragedies. Yet, we cannot kill our way to victory. We must find a way to silence today's enemies while ensuring that their children do not become tomorrow's terrorists.
We can do this, but only if we commit ourselves to the task as one, united people. While we are of many creeds and cultures we are in the end, above all else, one people united – Americans. And, we can do anything if we set our minds to it for our potential knows only the bounds of our dreams. Thus, today I ask you to reflect, remember, and renew our common vow – that together we will not let the events of that Tuesday ultimately define our destiny. We are Americans – its time we start acting like it.
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http://www.zellerforcongress.com/