The Retiree at The Grizzly ⛳🏌️‍♀️🎸🎹🇺🇸

25 years ago this morning, I was packing for my first trip as a pilot for American Airlines when Suzi came in and told me an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. I assumed a small airplane, bad weather. Then I turned on the television. Crystal clear morning in New York. I stood there holding my young son Matthew, going through my mental aviation checklist on how this could've happned... and the second airplane hit. I knew we were under attack. Flight suit. Boots. Raced out to Naval Air Station Fort Worth. Through the gate before the base went to Threat Condition Delta. I was supposed to spend that day flying Americans to Miami. I spent it strapped into an armed and running F/A-18 Hornet at the end of a runway, prepared to shoot one down. Gruff and I waited while the Spads of the 457th FS got airborne, scheduled to launch when they ran out of gas. By the time the did, all air traffic was on the ground. 2,977 innocent people were murdered by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists. Souls jumped from the towers, because falling through a clear September sky was better than burning alive. First responders climbed up while thousands ran down. Father Judge, a Catholic priest and FDNY chaplain, walked into hell to pray over the dying and became one of its victims. They carried him out and laid him on an altar. 25 years later, Americans are still dying from what they breathed at Ground Zero. Veterans still carry the wounds you can see and the ones you can't. This country has forgotten why. NYC elected an avowed anti-American immigrant Muslim socialist as mayor. Michigan's nominee for senate closed his campaign beside a man who said America 'deserved 9/11' and that we brought it on ourselves. People running for office in a country they hate. We raised a generation to be ashamed of this great country. They will not defend it. And a generation that will not defend a country will eventually accept whatever replaces it. I am for religious freedom. I spent 15 years defending the document that guarantees it, I started my own church. But the moment your religion leaves its lane and comes into mine - the moment it claims the right to kill me for not believing what you believe - it is not a faith anymore. It is a political system with a body count. Its own law. Its own courts. Its own mandates on what women can and can't do. Ask a girl in Kabul about her schooling, ask a Christian in Saudi Arabia where his church is. There isn't one in the whole country. 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. We let them build here. They do not let us build there. That is not tolerance, it's an invasion. Europe has fallen. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Contrary to what the pope thinks, there is such a thing as a 'just war'. This is it. 25 years ago this morning I sat at the end of a runway in a loaded fighter, waiting for an order I prayed would never come. Many said we would never forget. They did. I never will. Fight's On. @NoFallenHeroes @SuziNFH