it s almost an other worldly experience. the first thing you said was wow the weather today. exactly as it did on 9/11. i was in d.c., and brings it all back. but the day before 9/11 the world has largely at peace. america was not at war. we were in a boon, a fairly united country on the main issues. the two parties seemed to be in conflict, george w. bush had run against al gore but you look at the differences between them, compare that the differences between political leaders now in 2021. this moment of bliss it seems in retrospect is interrupted by what was called one of the bloodiest days of american history, battle of antietam, a little more than 3,000, 9/11 just about the same number of people ahead. ron allen had an interview at the top of the show with a young woman who talked about teaching
country and what it is like today and the way that our attitude as a country and as a government towards national security and international diplomacy changed. it s hard to remember that we hadn t had a terrorist attack on u.s. soil in most people s memory on september 10th of that year, and now the fact that we had one with such devastating consequences has changed really the entire makeup of the federal government and the way foreign policy and national security policy was made from that day forward. it became all of a sudden a hunt for terrorists around the world, that even became in washington parlance a thing, the global war on terrorism, or the gwot, one of the worst acronyms ever made and it made the way americans interact with their own government so different. you mentioned the tsa, probably the thing that people are most directly familiar with, flying became extraordinarily difficult
and harder and the hassles increased the way we walk around in washington changed and 20 years later the hunt on terrorism is coming to an end. juan, you were a part of the mcism ins of all this 20 years ago. you re with us now today. talk about what you see is the biggest changes and what if any concerns you have about the last couple of decades in the national security posture. hallie, that was a shocking and tragic day of course. i think what happened and you heard it in the remarks from president bush, was a focus on a war on terror, being much more proactive and preventative with our national security. this idea that we needed to push our borders out, we needed to disrupt safe haven, we needed to dismantle, bankrupt terrorist networks, that became the focus and it was very much a preventative mindset. people who didn t live before
20 years. juan and anne, thank you. you will join us for more to come. thank you. as the war on terror that anne and juan are talking about, a lot of americans answered the call to serve. some parents and kids deploying to the same war. i had the chance to sit down with one of the families. nicholsons as they reflected on the last two decades and 9/11 redefined the meaning of service for them and so many families. military service a way of life. years of moving from one base to another. supporting their dad s career. on 9/11, everything changed. it feels like yesterday. it does? it s still fresh. the lieutenant general, now retired, was on a training commission in the california desert when a car pulled up with the news of the planes crashing into the world trade center.
america that that s where the vice president of the united states was being welcomed as a distinguished visitor just last week while the evacuation from afghanistan was going on. all of which is to say i think from my perspective, we have no idea what will be happening in afghanistan in the next 10 years or 20 years. i was really struck by secretary of state blink s address today because you are seeing him start to pivot to what joe biden said he wanted to do in the beginning of his administration, when he introduced his national security team nine months ago, they talked about reimaging national security, about shifting away from war as the primary instrument of u.s. power and that will address the real security threats we face after this failed 20-year global war on terrorism, meaning climate change, pandemics, racial injustice, income inequity,