Students today were honored to be visited by Dr. Harold K. Strunk, Doctor of Public Health (DrPH), retired Captain United States Navy, for the annual Veterans First 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony.
Today, the small auditorium on campus was filled with a mixed crowd of college staff, veteran students, Veterans of Foreign Wars (WFW) members from the local community and even students who weren’t alive for 9/11. All eager to hear the stories of the Retired Captain giving an exquisitely detailed speech on what preceded the attack that changed our country – and the world – forever.
Captain Strunk wasted no time. “The trail to 9/11 leads from Afghanistan to Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Pakistan, Egypt, Malta, Germany, Malaysia, and then to the United States. What happened on 9/11 didn’t just happen on that day. It was several years in the making. Let me tell you about it.”
As he continued, the audience was increasingly intent on the journey Captain Strunk was leading us all upon. A recollection from 1973 of Ambassador Cleo Noel, his deputy George Moore and Belgian Ambassador Guy Eid who had been captured by the Black September Faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Khartoum, Sudan (U.S. Embassy of Sudan, 2022). The militants demanded the release of a host of individuals, Robert Kennedy’s assassin Sirhan Sirhan, terrorist Abu Daoud, all Palestinians being held in Israel and Jordan, and all members of the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany.
No such releases happened, standing on the policy that we do not negotiate with terrorists. All three men were subsequently executed by the militants.
Captain Strunk spared no details. Following a bloody scene in Cairo of the assassination of Anwar Sadaat and about 100 others, he speaks of arriving the next day to a scene that had not been cleaned in any way. The audience hung on every word as he spoke so calmly about a situation that was anything but calm, and far from ordinary.
The Captain finished with the telling of how Osama Bin Laden started Al-Qaeda, which led to the fateful day of Sept. 11, 2001. A day that not only changed the lives of so many, but for many others, altered the course of their lives. You could sense the mood of the room changing; some reflecting on where they were that day, others trying to imagine the horrors of living through a day that they were too young to recall – or not yet born. There were a couple people who put their heads down a little, maybe remembering a loved one, maybe just thinking of a friend. Probably recalling some of their own stories from that same time as I knew I was.
The speech was followed up with lunch being provided by the Las Positas Veterans First program who hosted the event. It was a good time to interact with not only the Captain but also younger students and get their perspective on what this day means to them.
One student, Sam Waqa, shared why he attended today, saying “… because [these events are] deep rooted in our history. They had a guest speaker who had served and I just really wanted to see him talk about what had happened”
It wasn’t just a passing curiosity. Waqa also had a deeper connection – his aunt served in Afghanistan as a translator for the U.S. military, and he wanted to learn more about those experiences.
Captain Strunk stayed for lunch and answered any and all questions to anyone that wanted to stop by his table.
It was a great event on Campus and a great way for the veterans on campus and the other students to interact and connect on something that has impacted our country so much. It was a day of remembrance to honor the lives that were lost that day.
The gathering and ongoing annual events help Las Positas and the county as a whole continue to fulfill the promise, “We Will Never Forget.”
Tim Brady is a staff writer for The Express. Follow him @TBRADYLPC.
