September 11, 2021 – The Bittersweet Twentieth Anniversary

Biblical scholars coined the term The Kairos Moment as an instant of great clarity and profound knowledge to be mined from a significant event in history.

Part of being a student of the Kairos Moment is reflecting on historical events that should be forever in our conscious memory. In recent decades, we have forgotten that we must learn from history or be forever doomed to repeat it.

September 11, 2001, became a benchmark in terrorism for the United States. It’s difficult to imagine that any intelligence official or futurist could have foreseen four American passenger planes being turned into lethal weapons, killing a historic 2,977 souls, and injuring 6,000 others.

I was glued to the TV from the first newscast of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. It was particularly poignant for me to watch the search and rescue efforts since I had a business meeting in WTC II two weeks before the attack.

Those of us who lived this incredible tragedy all made a virtual vow to never forget the tragedies and learn from them so that a large-scale terrorist attack would never happen again. As a nation, we have kept that promise, so far.

I call this anniversary bittersweet because it is be celebrated including a generation of Americans that were not alive in 2001. How well have we learned from disaster and transferred that Kairos Moment to those who will prevent something similar from happening in the future?

Second, will the lessons learned in our vulnerability be part of the celebration? What have we accomplished over the last two decades to create military, civilian and cultural barriers to attack?

Finally, with the current regime changes in the Middle East, will our sworn mortal enemies use the anniversary to attempt another demonstration of their ability to create chaos and havoc on American assets? Will they be even tacitly successful if they try?

Did we learn from the profound knowledge of 9/11/2001 or are we doomed to repeat it?