Columbia voices on the War on Terror: 13 years after 9/11

Thirteen years ago today, the nation watched in confusion, then horror, as highjacked airliners slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a rural field in Pennsylvania.

That horror turned to an unprecedented resolve to triumph over the terrorists responsible. Then, came more than a decade of war.

Today, even as a war-weary nation welcomes home the last of U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan, air strikes have begun again. U.S. warplanes are pounding targets in northern and western Iraq, fighting back against the next generation of the extremist terrorist movement, called the Islamic State, or ISIS.

What did the U.S. accomplish during the past 13 years of war? Should the country send troops back into combat in Iraq? And what will it take to win the War on Terror?

A cross-section of the Columbia community – touched in different ways by the terrorist attacks and all that followed – attempts to answer those questions. See Page A4

Betty Lorick, mother

On Jan. 9, 2002, 28-year-old Marine Capt. Dan McCollum of Irmo was the co-pilot of a C-130 refueling plane attempting a night landing in the rugged mountains of Pakistan. A wing tip clipped a mountain and the plane crashed, killing all seven crew members.

He was the first South Carolinian to lose his life in the war on terror. And Betty Lorick had lost a son.

Today, Lorick works hard to keep her son’s name alive. And she is admittedly confused about where events in the Middle East may lead.

“At this point in my life, I have no clue,” said Lorick, whose other son, Matt, has just retired from the Army after serving three tours in Afghanistan. “I see so many unanswered questions. I just don’t get it.”

But despite her loss, Lorick trusts military leaders to do the right thing if ordered to go back into Iraq.

“I don’t think anyone is in favor of war,” she said. “But I think there are some things that are worse, like ISIS. I would never want it, but I would support it. I don’t know the military or warfare, but I would support the generals who have proven themselves honorable.”

Lorick doesn’t see an end to the fighting.

“I don’t think the war on terror is going to end,” she said. “Each generation has to fight his own wars. It’s never solved.”

Jeff Wilkinson

Retired Maj. Gen. James Livingston

Livingston, a Medal of Honor recipient, sums up events in Iraq this way: “We gave up a win.”

The Mount Pleasant resident received the nation’s highest award for valor in combat in 1968 when he led an assault on a fortified village in Vietnam. He was wounded twice in the charge.

Today, Livingston is reluctant to reintroduce troops in Iraq, simply because he doesn’t know the good guys from the bad guys.

“There are so many factions going back and forth at each other, fighting each other,” he said. “Let’s let whoever wins win and deal with those guys. That way we don’t have to get any of our men or women wounded or killed in action.”

Livingston, who was interviewed before President Obama’s Wednesday night address, criticized the president for not having a clear strategy on how to deal with ISIS.

“The president needs to pull up his bootstraps and set goals,” he said.

He predicted that America’s war on terror will be ongoing, escalating at times, decreasing in others.

“It’s like a cancer,” he said. “You have to cut it out. You carry on your lives and try to keep it boxed up.”

Jeff Wilkinson

Fritz Hamer, historian

Hamer, historian at USC’s South Caroliniana Library, is the author of the book “Charleston Reborn: A Southern City, Its Navy Yard, and World War II,” as well as numerous articles on military history.

He sees the war on terror through two lenses: One was an ill-advised invasion of Iraq that has opened the region up to new terrors; the other, a long, bloody slog through a historically unconquerable Afghanistan as revenge for the 9/11 attacks.

“We went into Iraq on false pretenses and we’ve stirred up more animosity than we’ve solved,” said Hamer, adding that sending ground troops back to Iraq would be a mistake. “I think that is the last thing we should do. I think what we should be doing is what Obama is doing now – putting together a coalition. It’s Iraq’s responsibility to stop ISIS, without help.”

As for Afghanistan, he said, “We should have focused all of our resources on it. But every nation that has invaded Afghanistan has eventually failed, starting with Alexander the Great. Afghanistan is an impossible nut to crack.”

Hamer, former curator of cultural history at the S.C. State Museum, sees the war on terror as ongoing. “It’s taken us 100, 200 years to get into this and it will take us 100, 200 years to finally get out of it.”

Jeff Wilkinson

James Smith, Richland S.C. House representative

S.C. Rep. James Smith, D-Richland, is a Major in the S.C. National Guard and was deployed to Afghanistan from 2007 to 2008. Smith commanded a team of nine Americans who worked with Afghan security forces and trained them on securing the region where they worked.

Smith said America has accomplished a great deal in the Middle East in diplomacy and development efforts, as well as defense.

“It’s about exerting in positive ways America’s influence to help bring about stability in regions around the globe,” Smith said. “We can’t retreat from those efforts.”

He said the lack of subsequent terrorist attacks on America’s soil also is an indicator of success.

Smith, whose son also is a private in the Guard, paraphrased Ronald Reagan in saying freedom is not passed to children through the bloodstream.

“We all have a duty and responsibility to our nation and to what it stands for,” said Smith, who supports continued engagement to keep America safe.

Cassie Cope

Josef Olmert, Middle East expert

University of South Carolina political science professor Olmert is an expert on Middle Eastern affairs with a specialty in Syria and Lebanon studies. If the expectation of success by America in the Middle East is that the homeland not be under attack by terrorists, then that has been achieved, Olmert said. However, if the idea is that the United States, by being a global superpower, is responsible for safety and security of allies threatened by terrorism, then measuring success is more complicated. The rise of the Islamic State and the beheading of Americans shows that terrorism exists in the Middle East in a way that is much bigger than prior to 9/11, Olmert said.

Olmert said Americans should not think of Armed troops as the best way to deal with terrorism. Boots were on the ground in Iraq for a decade, but Iraq is much more dangerous now than prior to 2003, Olmert said.

Alternatives to sending large numbers of American soldiers could be using special operations units and drones, which proved effective in Yemen and Pakistan, though more attention should be given to preventing civilian casualties, Olmert said. Other options include creating an international coalition, mobilizing Muslims, and using counter propaganda aimed at separating between militants and the majority of the Muslim population, which is alarmed by the extremists, he said.

Olmert said the “War on Terror” has been interpreted by Muslims as a war against them, and Islam is not associated with terrorism, or violence. He also emphasized the need for patience among Americans.

“Nothing like this can be dealt with within days or weeks or even a few months,” he said.

Cassie Cope

Howard Rose III, Iraq veteran

In 2003, at the start of the war in Iraq, Rose was stationed at Camp Scunion, a forward operating base housing an armored battalion near Baquba, about 30 miles north of Baghdad in the heart of the Sunni Triangle.

Today, Baquba is on the front lines of the brutal war between the struggling Iraqi Army and the Sunni extremist Islamic State.

Rose watches the news with growing sadness. When asked what we accomplished in eight years of war in Iraq, the former Fort Jackson drill sergeant and 20-year Army retiree responds, “Unfortunately, not a lot.”

He sees a dysfunctional Iraqi government and an Iraqi military seemingly unwilling to take the fight to ISIS.

“The Iraqi nationals have not shown a propensity to fight for themselves,” said Rose, now a Realtor and an associate broker with Keller Williams Realty. “They are expecting us to come over and fight for them. We’ve given them enough training and equipment; they have to defend themselves. Air strikes are the closest we should come.”

Rose said the answer to terror is international cooperation. “It involves all of us. We have to attack it as one.”

Jeff Wilkinson

Mary Kent Hearon, 9/11 witness from Columbia

Hearon, of Columbia, said she remembers the total mayhem that descended on the people of New York City during the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Hearon, then 26, arrived at her job at a small venture capital firm shortly after the first plane hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m.

“All you could see was gray, huge clouds of smoke coming from a hole in the top of the building,” Hearon said.

At that moment, people weren’t running and screaming yet. According to Hearon, that happened after the second plane hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.

Hearon said that was when she knew she needed to close the office and get everyone out. She had a feeling that the towers were going to fall.

“I was in absolute shock,” Hearon said. “It was the most surreal thing I have ever seen in my life.”

Now, 13 years after the attacks, Hearon, 39, said she doesn’t believe the war on terror will ever end because “there is never a winner in war; everybody loses.”

With U.S. the military aiding refugees in Iraq while also bombing Islamic State militants, Hearon said she hopes nothing like 9/11 happens again here at home forcing the military back into Iraq.

“I just don’t have a good feeling about us going into Syria and Iraq,” Hearon said. “I think America should stay out of it this time.”

Harrison Cahill

Thomas Dunn, former White Knoll Middle School student

Dunn remembers being in his computer class on 9/11 at White Knoll Middle School when the intercom crackled to life telling teachers to turn on the TV’s in classrooms.

Dunn, now 26, said it was like seeing something from the movies as the second airplane carrying 65 passengers crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Following the attacks, Dunn and fellow students mobilized a fundraiser to raise money for a new firetruck for the Red Hook Ladder in New York. The students managed to raise $540,000 in a few months to donate the new truck to the fire station.

Now, 13 years later, Dunn said he doesn’t think that anybody will win the war on terror, because nobody wins in war.

“I think it is something that we had to do because of the situation we were put in 13 years ago,” Dunn said. “I really don’t think anybody has won. We are still sacrificing lives today, but again, 13 years ago we had lives taken away from us.”

“We had a choice. Whether or not we made the right choice is still to be seen,” Dunn said.

As the United States military continues to bomb Islamic State militants in Iraq, Dunn said he hopes the U.S. doesn’t lose its will to fight.

“It’s once again something that we need to be prepared to stand up against and face because it is a very real thing,” Dunn said.

Harrison Cahill

Capt. Ed Waller, S.C. National Guard

Waller is a soldier in the S.C. National Guard. And as any good active duty soldier should, he keeps his opinions on politics and policy to himself.

“That’s above my pay grade,” he said

But ask him about what the U.S. accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he is succinct.

“We gave them the potential for Democracy and freedom,” he said. “We won all our major battles, fought the good fight and did our jobs the way we’re supposed to.”

Waller, of Columbia, was deployed for more than a year in Afghanistan as a combat engineer. He said that if the president decides to send troops back into Iraq, or asks them to stay longer in Afghanistan, they will do it with professionalism.

“We’ll do the job, like we’ve done before in previous wars,” he said. “That’s why we put on the uniform.”

As to what the future holds in the war on terror, he said he doesn’t know.

“Again that is above my pay grade,” he said. “But if we go over there, we’re going to fight hard, do the job we were sent over there to do and keep the United States safe.”

Jeff Wilkinson

This story was originally published September 11, 2014 at 7:52 AM with the headline "Columbia voices on the War on Terror: 13 years after 9/11."