Notes From An Airplane: 9/11 25 Years Later
Sent to newspapers 9/11/2026
A nation united 25 years ago. What about today?
25 years ago, I lived a mile from the Pentagon. I’ve written about Sept. 11, 2001 several times in this space, and what happened to me and to my family.
I’m writing this on an airplane. I’ve managed to be flying at least 15 of the last 25 subsequent September 11ths because of the nature of my work and life. The Department of Homeland Security, and the Transportation Security Administration were each created very rapidly in response to 9/11.
I queued up this morning in the Touchless TSA PreCheck line, let facial recognition scan me through the first checkpoint as “safe to fly,” then dumped my carry-on bags into a bin (I always check a bag now – the liquids needed to maintain my over-50 beauty regimen can in no way fit in a quart-size zipper bag). For once, my shoes had no metal in them, as I tend to fly in heels.
Today, I thanked every TSA agent I encountered. I have relinquished a great deal of my privacy for the privilege of air travel, but I also was not one of the more than 400 Americans on airplanes who died at the hands of the 9/11 hijackers. In the hundreds of flights, and more than a million miles logged since then, TSA has worked (without pay for weeks at a time thanks to unyielding partisan gridlock in Congress) tirelessly to keep me and millions of fellow travelers safe every day.
One image that stands out to me from all the jumbled memories of 9/11 is the Pentagon parking lot mid-afternoon that day. Amidst all the confusion and chaos and horror and strangeness of that day, I saw a couple familiar faces doing a very familiar thing.
Rear Adm. Craig Quigley was the senior uniformed spokesman for the Department of Defense. Rear Adm. Steve Pietropaoli was his counterpart for the Department of the Navy. Quigley and Pietropaoli had set up an ad hoc Joint Information Bureau in the parking lot and were taking questions and giving a briefing. While the Pentagon was on fire.
I’d been out of the Navy for two years in 2001. I had become ill and was medically retired as I was unable to serve onboard a ship. Quigley and Pietropaoli were both captains at the time and reached out and found me as I was transitioning and gave me real help and advice.
On 9/11, as I watched them on television from my living room, they provided an update on the attack, the damage to the building, where Pentagon staff should report for work in the coming days, where family members could get information about missing loved ones, the casualty reporting process, all the OPREP/SITREP reporting protocol that had been drummed into me and my colleagues for years.
It was incredibly reassuring to see the process executed masterfully, and to see that it worked. Later that evening, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld would give a briefing from inside the building. It was a brilliant move showing resolve and resilience.
I can’t stop thinking about this and thinking about the current era. What would happen if, heaven forbid, another 9/11 occurred? It’s not just that Quigley and Pietropaoli retired decades ago. It’s that there are no admirals left to do this work.
Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth has eliminated nearly all of the senior public affairs positions across the military. He relies on political appointees who troll the press instead of working with them. He flat out refuses to hold press briefings during a shooting war with Iran.
President Trump posted about the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with a story no one had heard before and his own nephew felt compelled to disavow publicly and declare had never happened. When we have a Pentagon chief who won’t disclose basic battle information and a Commander in Chief making up 9/11 fairy tales, it’s hard to be hopeful about our ability to withstand another terrorist incursion.
Yet, I am.
Because our leaders represent just a handful of the American people and their time in power is waning. Here’s what I mean. Pete Hegseth is a fool. And he might have a couple dozen people in his inner circle. But there are 1.8 million men and women in the military. And they are all volunteers. Yes, Hegseth has purged some admirals and generals. But he can’t fire 1.8 million members of the armed forces. And they will still be there on January 21, 2029.
And that’s just the military. The administration is full of finks and cheats besides fools. Maybe a few hundred of them. There are 350 million of us. And we are independent, resilient, and we vote. We don’t all agree; we shouldn’t. Yet if we can agree that we can do better than finks, cheats and fools – just as we united 25 years ago – we will come out okay.
Craig and Steve: Thank you. Thank you for making 9/11 slightly normal. Thank you for being kind to me and making my departure from the Navy slightly normal. Thank you for being an example on an important day of how things should be and can be again.
Merritt Hamilton Allen is an executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican for 36 years, she became an independent upon reading the 2024 Republican platform. She lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and one of cat. She can be reached at merritt@merrittocracy.news.