I was born December 7,1948 (7 years after Pearl Harbor). On 9/11/2001 I was at the Navy's Air War Weapons Center {NAWWC) Ridgecrest, CA. I was working on some new technology for the US Navy/Marines Cobra Dos, 2 man helicopter. It was prior to 7AM in CA when we saw the first videos of plane #1 hitting Tower #1. That was eerie, then plane #2 hit Tower #2. By the time I arrived at work that day we were in DefCon DELTA. That evening prior to leaving work, I noticed fighter jets that had been in storage on the base were being moved to other locations. Over the next few days and weeks, some were cannabilized, others were receiving those parts and getting moved to the flight line. NAWWC took on an energy that was noticeable. Fighter jets were flying night missions. Touch and Gos were round the clock. Our ordinance test range included air space over Death Valley and the Sierra Nevadas. Within 6 weeks there wasn't a single plane disassembled. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the US was preparing to go to war. Call it "Mobilization" and from my perspective and experience I had never seen the military go into overdrive round the clock. The cunning enemy that we fought then in Afghanisean has expanded and morphed. My point is this. As a nation we failed to be vigilant and 9/11 exposed that failure. It exposed the greatest flaw in our security posture. We didn't then and we still do not seamlessly communicate among our security agencies. This is a shout out to our leadership that government needs to set aside their disputes and jealousies and rather than working to sabotage each other, find the common ground. Had our security agencies been more integrated and harmonious, it's possible that 9/11/2001 would have been just a typical beautiful workday in NYC.