9/11 Veterans Grapple With Wars 25 Years Later
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Right 50%
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What happened
On September 11, 2001, hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center in New York; the North Tower collapsed that morning, and the attacks set off a U.S. military campaign that included the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In the months after the attacks, history teacher John Buglione asked his students to write letters to the future, documents he now uses with students who were not alive that day. Ahead of the 25th anniversary, five veterans who enlisted or were already serving around September 11 — John Byrnes, who helped secure Ground Zero then served in both wars; Chris Hoff, who deployed twice to Afghanistan; Rep. Troy Downing, R-Mont., who walked into a recruiter’s office after returning from a hunting trip; Brandon Newberry, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan; and Michael Matthews, who deployed to Iraq in 2003 and was wounded by an IED — described how that day changed their lives and how they now assess the wars that followed. Several described lasting injuries, including Hoff’s concussions that ended his military career and Matthews’s months of hospitalization after the bombing.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 2 articles
2 of 2 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 2 of 2
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: John Buglione, John Byrnes and Chris Hoff
- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 1 of 2
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: letters from students
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- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 11, 16:00 UTC by Fox News, naming its source. First document 18 hours later, from Washington Post (letters from students).
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This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
The 25th anniversary is two different stories. Left-leaning coverage never mentions the veterans who went to war after the attacks, or the wars themselves. Right-leaning coverage, in Fox News, is built entirely around five of those veterans and their unsettled questions about Afghanistan, Iraq, and the withdrawal. The Washington Post instead follows a history teacher who asked students to write letters after the attacks and now assigns those letters to a new class.
Right-leaning coverage leads with a swimmer who heard sirens, saw a tower fall, and went to his armory. Left-leaning coverage leads with students who "weren't alive on 9/11" and a teacher assigning other teens' letters. One side puts the reader in the path of the wars; the other puts the reader in a classroom that never reaches them.
What, if anything, should students learning that morning as history be told about the wars that followed?
Bottom line
One Fox News veteran still calls going to Iraq "not necessary." The Washington Post's anniversary story never mentions a deployment.
The receipts — 6 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Five veterans who served after the attacks describe pride in answering the call and doubts about Iraq, the long Afghanistan war, and the withdrawal
- A history teacher uses letters his 2001 students wrote to the future to teach current students about the attacks
- A veteran who helped secure Ground Zero said going to Afghanistan was necessary and going to Iraq was not
- Rep. Troy Downing called the withdrawal under President Biden a blemish that squandered what was gained in Afghanistan
- A Marine who spent years in Afghanistan said he almost feels everything he did was for nothing because he failed the Afghan people
- An Army veteran injured by an IED in Iraq spent three and a half weeks in a coma and nearly nine months in the hospital
The Left View
Washington Post coverage of the anniversary emphasizes civic memory over combat. It presents Buglione’s 2001 “letters to the future” as a teaching tool for students who “weren’t alive on 9/11,” so they can read the attacks through the voices of teenagers who lived them. In that framing, September 11 is now a classroom problem: how a generation with no firsthand memory learns what that day meant.
The Right View
Fox News Digital frames the anniversary as veterans who “grapple with what followed”: pride in answering the call, mixed with unresolved questions about how the wars expanded, lasted, and ended. Byrnes drew a “sharp distinction,” saying “The decision to go to Afghanistan, that was absolutely necessary” while “The decision to go to Iraq, which was not necessary,” and calling the long stay in Afghanistan “unfortunate”; later choices were “just pebble after pebble into an avalanche,” and leaders “can never admit failure,” instead telling “the boss you’re winning until somebody else comes to take your place.” Downing called the withdrawal under former President Joe Biden “a blemish” that “squandered everything that we gained there,” but urged comrades not to think their service was “in vain” because they “stepped up to the dotted line when your country asked you to.” Newberry said the United States “fumbled the ball” in Afghanistan and that he “almost feel[s] like everything that I did was almost for nothing” because he “failed the Afghan people.” Hoff credits the Wounded Warrior Project and equine therapy with saving his life and tells other veterans “it’s okay to get help.” Matthews stated the unresolved mix directly: “We’re proud of what we did,” “Even though we may not have fully understood what we were doing or why we were doing it.”
Our Take (balanced)
The left-leaning account’s strongest argument is generational: September 11 is already slipping into taught history, and Buglione’s 2001 letters are direct evidence that students with no memory of the day can meet it only through reconstructed firsthand voices. The right-leaning account’s strongest argument is that the people who went to war still will not render a single verdict — they hold pride in having served together with Byrnes’s claim that Afghanistan was “absolutely necessary” while Iraq “was not necessary,” Downing’s charge that the 2021 withdrawal “squandered everything that we gained there,” and Newberry’s sense that he “failed the Afghan people” and that his years there were “almost for nothing.” The central unresolved tension is whether the 25th anniversary is chiefly a civic-education task of transmitting memory to people who never saw the towers fall, or a still-open argument among those who fought over whether the wars that followed honored, expanded, or wasted the purpose of that day.
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