Thread by @seanphughes99

Thread: Today is 20 years since the USS Cole was attacked by Al Qaeda in the port of Aden in Yemen. It's really difficult to overstate the change that ensued for those of us that served during that time. #USSCole

2/Most of us think of 9/11. And some point out that the Cole was the canary in the coal mine. But neither are true. The attack was more akin to reminding us that there was a coal mine...and all there were actual dangers. Which means what's really more remarkable...

3/...is the state we were in the years leading up to it. At the time, I had just finished up (or was finishing) ship's engineering school and had received orders to one of the Cole's sister guided missile destroyers. I had a classmate from Annapolis on the ship who survived.

4/The attack rattled me more than I would have expected. And if that sounds strange, it's important to understand where we were as a force at the time. I don't mean doctrinally or strategically. I mean where the people were on the arc of a mental investment perspective.

5/I was accepted into Annapolis a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I figured, like many will tell you if they're able to avoid revising history to apply to the contemporary veteran worship narrative, that I would do my five and go to wall street and mint money...

...like the classes that came before me. I watched Top Gun as a kid and read Tom Clancy books and watched Patriot Games. We grew up as cold warriors. Which meant that by the time I joined, it had been over 30 years since sustained combat..

6/..operations. There were a few people I ran into who served in Desert Storm. There were some crusty old sr enlisted or flag officers who served in Vietnam. But we were a pretty green force. The things that got people excited were platforms. Ships. Jets. Missiles. Satellites.

7/SEAL Teams or the Special Forces were a bit of a novelty. They were a small group of tough folks. But by no means were they the face of the force. And what we had left an military intelligent apparatus was mostly invisible to anyone outside the craft.

8/I didn't even know an intel officer when I deployed for the first time in 2001. By the time I was done, a decade later & three war time deployments to combat zones, attached to SOF, everything was SEAL teams, counter insurgency and intelligence. Everyone I knew had been to war.

9/ 20 years to the day later, things are moving back to the pre-2000 world again. Combat experience is dwindling. And people are starting to tire a bit of the SOF brand. We're wondering if we could sustain ourselves in a war with China. And we've not yet turned the corner on...

10/a war with a virus. And the blip in American military history, the age of wars in the Middle East....seems to be winding down. 20 years to the day. It seems like everything to those of us that spent our time in it. But 20 years isn't much really...in the arc of history.

11/That the change that came could come so quickly is something. And that it changes back so quickly is something too. It's 20 years since we lost those Sailors and it all started...