american soil
Looking back now, back to a time before the September 11, 2001 attacks, our nation had a very different feel…innocent maybe, but we had no reason to feel a lack of security. Then came that horrific day in September, when innocence was lost. Our nation was attacked…on our own soil, and that was not acceptable!! Of course, there would be retaliation. Those responsible would have to pay, and they did, but we also had to find a way to make sure this could never happen again.
Enter the Office of Homeland Security. Founded on October 8, 2001, less than one month after the September 11th terrorist attacks…the hope was to be able to decipher the chatter that is always out there and if possible, stop any future attacks. While we would all agree that Homeland Security hasn’t done its job in the way we would like, there have been no major attacks on our soil. Any further inaction on their part could cause big problems, so we need to watch and pray over our nation.
Homeland Security is a department of the cabinet. It is the largest department of the federal government, charged with preventing terror attacks, border security, immigrations and customs, disaster relief and prevention and other related tasks. President George W Bush announced the creation of a new office to 
“develop and coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the United States from terrorist threats or attacks” just ten days after September 11. The new director of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Tom Ridge assumed his role as director and the office opened on October 8, 2001.
Congress had their concerns about the new department, thinking it would add to the federal bureaucracy and dramatically re-organize the security state. Nevertheless, Congress officially voted to make the office a cabinet-level department in November of 2002. Eventually, 22 other departments were absorbed by DHS. Entities absorbed by DHS included the Secret Service, Customs and Border Protection, and even Coast Guard. The Department of Homeland Security has faced criticism for much of its brief history. It doesn’t really seem to be a very “well-oiled machine” as it were. The response to Hurricane Katrina, for example, was condemned by many, despite having been partly founded to coordinate a government-wide disaster response. Unfortunately, DHS reportedly did not develop such a plan until two days after Katrina made landfall…great timing, since they knew the hurricane was coming.
The DHS is inefficient in many ways, but I suppose that any government agency is…especially these days. Nevertheless, one thing can be said for them…up to now anyway. There has not been a major attack on American soil since they were formed. So, provided they continue to do that much, they are better than no security at all.
It’s hard to believe that the war my dad fought in was going on over 80 years ago. It’s also hard to believe that 80 years ago today, what is now known as Casper-Natrona County International Airport, was then known as the Casper Army Air Base. In fact, today, September 1, 1942, was the day that the “new” Army Air Base opened. The base was a training base, because as you will recall, World War II was not fought on American soil, although there was one balloon bombing incident that did reach American soil.
Over the years that the Casper Army Air Base was in use, over 16,000 bomber crew members were trained there. The Casper Army Air Base was one of many Army Air Force bases built during World War II. Training began a few months after the base opened. As a training hub, the base at one time had nearly 5,000 people living and working out of about 400 buildings. Many of the buildings from the old base stand today.
During the three years that the Casper Army Air Base was active, 140 Casper Army Air Base aviators died in 90 plane crashes. Of course, not all of the crashes were at the base. Most of the crashes were in Wyoming, but many occurred out of state when the fliers were on longer training flights. New crews arrived at Casper typically by train. Each crew consisted of two pilots, a navigator, a bombardier, a radioman, flight engineer, and four gunners. They immediately began a strict regimen of training. Pilot training was rigorous. The crews endured countless hours of advanced instruction in navigation, gunnery, bombing, armaments, flight engineering, and flying. They were also trained in aerial gunnery, air-to-ground gunnery, formation flying, night navigation, and of course, bombing. Joye Kading (longtime Casper Army Air Base secretary) remembered that Major General Hap Arnold once visited the base. She said, “He was so thrilled with this base and how it was operated and how careful it was, and how congenial all the people were that were working with one another.” That is truly how most people in Casper are, even today. Of course, you always find a few who don’t fit that description, but they are the rarity, and not the norm.
The base closed in 1945 and sat abandoned until the War Assets Administration turned the airfield over to civil 
control in the late 1940s, and in 1949 it became Natrona County Municipal Airport. At that time, it replaced the former Casper Airport…Wardwell Field, whose runways are now streets in the town of Bar Nunn. On December 19, 2007, the name was changed to Casper-Natrona County International Airport. These days, approximately 35,000 flights go in and out of the airport every year.
Twelve years ago today, our world was changed forever. In my remembrance and that of all living Americans, there has never been never been such an attack…here, on American soil…until September 11, 2001. That day will live in the memories of all the American people who were old enough to remember it, and any who have been told very much about it since. I have to wonder about the people born since that time. Will they understand what that day is all about? Or will they simply see it in the way most of us see things like the Civil War or the American Revolutionary War? Both were events that took place here in America so very long ago, fought on American soil, and yet, they seem more like a storybook event than a real event that is such a big part of our history. I don’t know how that could have been 
changed in the years following those wars, but with our technology, we should be able to keep the memory of the terrorist attacks in the front of our children’s thoughts, so that as they grow, we don’t lose sight of what the evil in this world can bring about.
I did not know anyone who lost their life on 9-11, but I did know someone who could have been in the middle of that whole thing. My daughter’s friend, Carina, who has been like a third daughter to me since they were in Kindergarten, was a flight attendant during that time with Continental Airlines, based out of New Jersey. She was sick that day, and so was not flying. That did not alleviate her parents’ concerns, because they didn’t know that she was not flying and they 
couldn’t get a hold of her, because she had turned her phone off. When we knew that she was safe, we all gave a sigh of relief. It is a feeling of relief that we will never forget.
Now twelve years later we are again remembering a horrible terrorist attack against our nation, this time in Benghazi. Our government became too complacent about our safety both here and abroad, and again…people died…on a day when we should have been watchful!!! It is an atrocity!! When will we learn that we cannot forget. There is so much evil in this world and we must remain watchful, or we will be attacked again. Today, I pay tribute to those lost in all of these attacks, and to those who gave their lives trying to help others. Rest in peace.
