By Lt. General Rod Bishop, USAF ret, USAFA 1974
STARRS Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Directors
Member, STARRS Board of Directors
Co-Founder of STARRS
I was the Chief Planner (J-5–Brig Gen position) for US Southern Command, Headquartered in Miami FL.
I was gathering up some paperwork to take with me that morning on an “inspection” our Commander (General Pete Pace) had asked me to make of the apartments we had rented for our enlisted personnel.
USSOUTHCOM HQ was not located on a “base” at the time (nor is it really today),–it was located in a rented office building and all personnel assigned there lived “on the economy.” As a cost saving measure for our enlisted serving in this high cost area, the command had rented a large portion of an apartment complex and our boss wanted to make sure it was suitable for our people.
Since Miami traffic could be horrendous and a 15 minute drive could easily turn into an hour, I had months before “given in” to the Army tradition of some officers having drivers. I could get through a lot of my inbox and be more productive having a driver–thus the reason I was gathering up my paperwork.
Directly outside my private office, there were probably 75 to 100 mostly Foreign Area Officers serving in cubicles along with two TVs at either end of the floor.
As I was getting up with paperwork in hand, I heard a loud gasp, followed immediately by a number of officers coming towards my office saying “General, a plane just hit one of the twin towers.”
Time seemed to stop while my deputy and I and a few of the Colonels on the staff, assessed the situation to see if we thought we were in any danger. There were too many unknowns at the time to make an assessment, but before I left UA Flight 175 had hit the south tower. I left the HQ wondering. Just wondering.
Nearing the apartment complex, I saw some flashing red lights coming from behind my staff car and asked the driver if he had a lead foot as it seemed like a cop wanted us to pull over. The driver complied, but instead of going to the driver’s window, the policeman came to mine–I rolled down the window and he said, “I am sorry general, but I saw the star on your plate and wanted you to be sure you knew they just hit the Pentagon.”
My wondering was over. I knew we were at war and the world would never be the same.
Those words “the world would never be the same” I heard echoed back to me that next Monday by the Minister of Defense of Uruguay in a meeting in Montevideo where I was hosting a security conference for a number of South American nation’s militaries.
By the way, when I returned to USSOUTHCOM HQ that morning, since our building was right under the final flight path of planes flying into Miami IAP that day, the three FOs in the building jointly decided to send everyone home. Since the FAA grounded all flights the next day, the doors of the HQ were opened back up and people were expected to come back to work. But since we were in FPCON Delta (the highest force protection condition in DOD), car hoods and trunks had to be opened and inspected–at 6 AM (normal report time) the line to get into the building was over a half mile long.
General Pace had returned the night before and had been on a call with the CJCS early that morning with all the other combatant commanders. We had 24 hours to come up with our assessment on how we could win the “global war on terrorism” in our Area of Responsibility (AOR).
So Gen. Pace had our security forces (SF) going down the line of cars waiting for their security inspections. The SF were looking for the other 5 FOs assigned to the Command to get us in the building so the planning could begin. As the Chief Planner–those next 24 hours were hectic to say the least. But I am proud of what we produced.
Two of our recommendations we live with today. We submitted: “Although not in our AOR, we recommend that first we stand up a Combatant Command focused on our homeland.”
For those not familiar with Combatant Commands, at the time there were nine. Four of them focused on different countries in the various geographic regions of our planet. Some had Operational Plans, but we all were also focused on working with partner nations in our region, sharing info and training and tactics–hoping to make our allies’ militaries stronger.
But none focused on our homeland (except US SPACECOM which had a focus only missile warning.) After establishing a provisional command in May of 2002–less than 13 months after we made that suggestion, US Northern Command (with the homeland security focus it still has today) was stood up as a fully activated Combatant Command on 1 October 2002.
As the combatant command that got the least amount of federal funding, SOUTHCOM’s successes or failures were largely in the hands of our partner agencies.
We leveraged, for example, US State Department dollars in helping Colombia win their civil war with narco-terrorists. Most people didn’t know that US State Department had its own Air Force–dubbed “America’s Other Air Force.”
We were also good at coordinating among the other 20+ different cabinet departments, independent agencies, specialized offices and cross-jurisdictional centers–but didn’t see that happening on a national scale.
We said again, “Although not in our AOR, we recommend” and went on to suggest we create a new Department of our government to coordinate all of these then uncoordinated and disparate activities. “Call it the Department of Homeland Security” we said.
Since interagency coordination was required in this case, this one took a tad longer–but in November of 2002, the Homeland Security Act was passed by Congress, creating a cabinet-level department, and the Department of Homeland Security was created.
So here we are 25 years later. My concern today is that 25 years can wash away the lessons we should have learned and internalized.
Americans are a giving and welcoming people, but we should learn from history. The trend we see across much of America today is not a good one.
Now is the time to take a hard look at what history has taught us about how Islam has expanded. Ask yourself if the influx of so many people of Muslim faith (over 2 million in the last 20 years) are really wanting to assimilate and want to be “Americans” first.
Study what has happened in Europe and be wary of the “red-green Axis.” https://starrs.us/the-red-green-axis/
STARRS Chairman Emeritus Lt General Rod Bishop, USAF (Ret.), USAFA 1974, is the founder of STARRS and served on active duty for 34 years as an aircraft commander, instructor pilot, and flight examiner. He commanded airmen at every operational level, including two squadrons, an operations group, an airlift wing, and a numbered air force. General Bishop’s last assignment was as Commander, 3rd Air Force, United States Air Forces in Europe at Ramstein Airbase in Germany, where he oversaw all American air and space activities in 93 countries in Europe and Africa. Read Full Bio
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