It’s nearly impossible to explain to people whose conscious lives did not begin before 9/11 exactly what that day meant, and how stark the boundary was between the America before and the America after. That this is the 25th anniversary is, upon reflection, shocking. How can it be that long ago? I remember it like yesterday because that was the day everything changed. If you are under 35, you were not really aware of life before the semihuman jihadi scum murdered 2,977 Americans and others. You could have had an entire military career in that time. It’s mind-boggling. And it’s worth reflecting on what it meant, and what it still means.

September 11, 2001, was not the day America began the long war. It was the day America became aware of the long war pagan enemies had been waging against us for decades. We took casualties here and there, but we told ourselves — particularly after we prevailed in the long, expensive Cold War — that history was over. The struggle between good and evil had culminated. We had won. There was no real opposition to the Western democracy we embodied, except some scattered nutballs who blew up the occasional building or shot up the occasional airport. Those casualties were less than a rounding error. We could take that kind of damage without noticing it, without changing anything. We were at peace. Or so we thought.

Our enemies did not think so. We had enemies, even if we were too busy enjoying ourselves to acknowledge it. 9/11 threw the truth in our face.

History wasn’t over. History will never be over. And the fight against evil will never be over.

I was putting on a suit to make a court appearance in San Pedro — there was a San Pedro, CA courthouse back then — when the phone rang. It was my law partner, Erik. “America is under attack,” he blurted. I flipped on the TV. I think that was just after the second plane hit the second tower. Irina and I looked at the carnage for a moment. “I’m going to war,” I said, and I was sort of right. A few years later I would be mobilized for 16 months and ordered to Kosovo, a hostile-fire zone but essentially a sideshow in the struggle against international........

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