It was the deadliest terror attack in world history, and it happened right here on our shores.
Do you remember where you were? I remember where I was, and exactly what I was doing 20 years ago today.
As we Americans pause today to memorialize the tragedy of September 11, 2001, it is important to remember where we were and where we are now.
In early 2001, an ancient breed of Radical Islam was rising in the Middle East, hell bent on destroying America (the ‘Great Satan’), chanting ‘Death to America’ and burning our flag across the world.
These radical Islamic Terrorists, later known as members of Al Qaeda, were provided a training sanctuary by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Led by their leader Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda scum infiltrated our country, learned how to fly jetliners and trained for their mission of destruction right here in our own country for nearly a year prior to September 11.
Twenty years ago today, nineteen of those terrorist dogs boarded three planes, hijacked them and used them as missiles to destroy the World Trade Center towers and crash into the Pentagon.
A fourth plane, flight 93, took off from Newark, NJ and made it forty-five minutes into its flight before the hijackers stormed the cockpit and took control of the plane.
But after turning around over Cleveland, Ohio, and flying back over Pennsylvania toward their intended target of the US Capitol building, the radical Muslims were confronted by full-blown American heroism.
You see, after hearing from family members on the ground (via phones on the seats) that other planes had been deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center towers, several passengers on board developed uncommon valor and did what Americans have always done in the face of great tyranny: they revolted.
And the leader of that mini-American Revolution at 40,000 feet was a guy loaded with toxic masculinity named Todd Beamer.
Todd Beamer was a Christian, a devoted husband and father of three, an Ohio State Buckeyes fan and a pure, rebellious American patriot.
In the moments before their counter-assault on the cockpit, Beamer led the passengers in praying the Lord’s Prayer and reciting the 23rd Psalm from the Holy Bible.
At 9:56am, Todd Beamer asked phone operator Lisa Jefferson and his fellow passenger compatriots those immortal words:
“Are you ready? Okay. Let’s roll.”
The fought their way into the cockpit like true Americans, sacrificed their own lives and sent those Radical Muslim terrorist dogs straight to hell.
And believe me, those terrorists never got their sick dreams of seventy virgins.
Todd Beamer and everyone on board died in a field in the beautiful Pennsylvania countryside, near a town called Shanksville at 10:03am.
When the attacks were over, the final death toll was nearly three thousand souls. At Iowa Gun Owners, we never forget and we remember the lives lost on that day twenty years ago.
But for us to truly memorialize the sacrifice of those who died that day and the service members of our military who died at the hands of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the like, we need to remember why they want us dead so badly.
The fact of the matter is that they love the evils of tyranny, they hate you and me, they hate freedom, and they hate our Creator.
And you know what? Those are fabulous things to be hated for.
But whether it is the evils of radical Islamic terrorism or the ancient evils of tyranny, neither ideology can coexist with the freedoms that make America America.
So if we want to preserve what makes America the best country on earth and our great Constitution, we must band together and fight for it at every turn.
As Benjamin Franklin so famously said, “We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
So let’s all take this opportunity as tens of thousands of God-fearing, freedom-loving Iowans and recommit ourselves to the battle of defending freedom and liberty.
By doing so, we can honor the memory of those who died fighting evil on 9/11, put a smile on our Founding Founders’ faces, and give those Radical Islamic SOBs one more reason to hate us.
Molon Labe.
For Iowa,
Aaron Dorr
Chairman
Iowa Gun Owners
