Gehrke: Morning of 9/11 changed the world, setting us on a path of indefinite war

I was due on Capitol Hill by 10 a.m. for a hearing on security preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympics. So, as we’d done numerous times, we strapped our 6-month-old daughter, Georgia, into the car and headed to the Metro, listening to Howard Stern on the way.

As we turned the corner, Stern was talking about a plane that had apparently hit the World Trade Center, but it wasn’t clear if it was a little Cessna or a commuter plane. I was just climbing out of the car when the second plane hit and it became apparent this wasn’t an accident.

“Looks like today is gonna be a wild one,” I said, not grasping the gravity.

The Olympic hearing, of course, was canceled, as the entire Capitol was in a panic. Getting anywhere in the city was a challenge, and getting near the Capitol was impossible. Police had cleared the building, and members of Congress and their staff hastily dispersed, some to nearby apartments, others rendezvousing in adjacent parks.

My family, across the river, had smoke from the smoldering Pentagon drifting through the windows.

Reports were coming in of the fourth hijacked plane crashing in Pennsylvania. Sen. Orrin Hatch was one of the first to blame Osama bin Laden. I tracked down Gov. Mike Leavitt, who had been in town for the Olympic hearing and now had a vastly different challenge ahead.

There were statements of resolve and demands for retaliation — a military response we all knew had to be coming.

The whole time we kept one eye on the televisions, watching in horror as the smoke and flames and jumpers spilled out of the towers. There were gasps, even whimpers, then tears as the first building collapsed. Then, disbelief as the second crumbled.

Much of the rest of the day was a frustrating blur. As reporters, we wanted answers, but there were no easy answers to be had.

It was dark by the time I left. The trains were running again, and streets were deserted except for the military vehicles parked at most intersections. Mailboxes were being hauled away so they couldn’t be drop spots for bombs. But most striking was the silence.

The normal heavy rumble of the planes that would fly over our house to National Airport was gone and the only things in the sky were the fighter jets patrolling the airspace.

I talk to my daughter now, 16 years later, and I’m struck by the extent that those events have now framed her life — the heightened security, the periodic stories of suicide attacks, the vilification of Muslims are all she’s known.

Her classmates are approaching an age in which they could become the next generation of soldiers in a “War on Terror” that has never had a cohesive strategy and can’t really be won.

Yes, we rebuilt and Bin Laden is dead, but more troops are headed to Afghanistan, as the Taliban remains a persistent foe. Also, the Islamic State is losing its grip on territory in Syria and Iraq, but it is only forcing the group to abandon conventional tactics and return to an insurgency.

And now we have a president who has no use for diplomacy. He alienates our allies and inflames our enemies, lobbing knee-jerk tweets and threatening to reinstitute torture, bomb families of terrorists and ban Muslim immigration to the United States.

Maybe we were complacent or arrogant or naïve before Sept. 11, 2001. We never saw it coming. Now, I’m afraid, we may never see an end.