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the very complex patriot weapon system. if not, you know, mr. biden says we're not going to send u.s. troops in there. you know, it's tough to learn overnight how to run something as sophisticated as these systems. >> neil: got it. thanks, colonel. meantime, our focus on afghanistan. remember the fine folks that our government left behind there? not everybody has. no one more important than veterans that are remembering what they did. jennifer griffin with more from the pentagon. jennifer? >> neil, the massive pentagon funding bill passed the senate last night and now awaits the president's signature. an extension of the special immigrant visa program that expires in a year was stripped out of the bill at the request of senator chuck grassley. some leading republicans are blocking the afghan adjustment act, which would have smoothed the legal asylum process for tens of thousands of afghans
have too, doesn't have the same resonance with us than that generation. inevitable 9/11 will not have the same connection between people who were not alive that day, but we keep that memory alive. in that case defeated japanese became our allies, in this case the taliban reconstituted, reconnected with al qaeda 21 years later, radical islam is still a threat. what do you make of the botched afghanistan withdrawal where we are in the legacy of 9/11? >> right, the difference being we armed, equipped emperor hirohito in japan. this is salty. you can say how many years are we removed from september 11th. there may have been time for people to get to a point where we could start talking about september 11th being this happened, and here was our response and this is why we are hyper vigilant but after what
today back in the hands of the taliban, would you have imagined 21 years ago? >> nobody imagined literally in 90 days, 90 green berets handed over the country back to afghan security forces. i was there on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. some of my friends were on the very last aircraft. my son served the 19th year. we've given the war to our children. that is unfortunate. pete: frank how has that affected your work too? you saw the tragedy of a year ago. we were here on the 20th anniversary together in the shadow of what happened in afghanistan but are we prepared to respond if we needed to today as a country? >> yes. i think we are. i know for a fact if something happened again we would all come together again and we would have the greatest response. we're blessed we have all volunteer military, this will be to die for you and i every single day. all too often they do. you know what?
lost going towares because of 9/11. and people whose husband, children, died of 9/11 consequences. we're here to make sure we never forget. pete: on going through this day. not just remembrance but vigilance, enemies abroad, realities here at home. master sgt., you were part of that. frank talked about it. one of the horse soldiers frank talked talked about. he responded here. you responded there. >> i want to talk about america came together, we were notified 14 september, maul teams of green berets were inserted this monument not only to the horse soldiers but men, brave men and women who followed the low gistal support and everything. those special operators are in 55 countries at any one time today still serving because of 9/11. pete: you mentioned the day after, you look at afghanistan
retired master sergeant scott neil, one of the first men to ride into afghanistan, one of the horse soldiers in response to what happened here 21 years ago frank, more than anyone i would argue kept alive the memory of what happened here. your reflections on what happened? >> i miss my brother, youngest brother, youngest of seven children. we're here to gather today to pray for him, my family, all 297families. certainly for america, america needs to pray. we have never been more divided. i hope we remember where we were 21 years ago. we all came together supported each other, loved each other. you know what? hopefully this is the beginning of that. pete: frank, you mentioned prayer. you are kicking off a prayer service in a moment. >> exactly. we have 9/11 family members here, a gold star widow here, that we don't want to forget we lost 7,000 men and women who we
awaited the dust cloud. right here. right here. i was in my house in the south tower, came down, and i received a phone call from a firefighter. he said to me, frank, it's really bad down here. i said, i know. and he goes, no, you don't understand. nobody's come home. and i had to get off the phone, tell my three sisters my brothers, that steven wasn't coming home. he ran through the tunnel to the towers. and that's why we started the tunnel to towers foundation. all these men and women have inspired us. every time i'm here at the american response monument that represents the 12 horsemen that rode into afghanistan, they were told, you take this mission, you're not going to come home. true american heroes. they never forgot what happened on september 11th and meeting them when they came home. it just sent chills up my spine because i knew what they went through. we're so proud at the tunnel to towers. for taking care of catastrophically injured service members. gold star families.
will: thank you, so much, david beamer. as our coverage continues up next frank siller and one of the first men in afghanistan, after the 9/11 attacks, retired master sgt. scott neil joins us live. ♪. if you don't stain your deck, it's like the previous owner is still hanging around. so today let's stain, with behr, the #1 rated stain. and make your deck, yours. behr. exclusively at the home depot. buying a car from vroom is so easy, all you need is a phone and a finger. just go to vroom.com, scroll through thousands of cars. then, tap to buy. that's it. no sales speak, no wasted time. go to vroom.com and pick your favorite.
introduced, david, i want to turn to you with this, so i think it is important to say december 7th, 1941 is a day that now lives in our history books but september 11th, 2001 still lives in the present so many ways that is what we're talking about. we're talking to a member, one of us of the greatest generation responded to 9/11. that brings up the past. you bring up as well, david. khalid sheikh mohammed, sifting in jail in gitmo. never faced trial. how do you think sit here today a friend of all of ours, scott manner, on fox news written in an op-ed, the enemy gets a vote as well. this is not just in the past. the enemy is looking out there to find us, as we sit here 21 days later, khalid sheikh mohammed the enemy still in places in afghanistan perhaps on their front foot, where should we be on the war on terror? >> hyper vigilant, hyper aware,
occurred a year ago in afghanistan, you know, when september 11th hit, the vas in america were rocked and the veterans that were showing up, the generation that was showing up to deal with the trauma of september 11th was the vietnam generation. just like when pearl harbor generation the world war i veteran was struggling. always the generation that has seen combat, dealing with the fact that their sons and daughters will have to go through it as well. we took 20 within years to salve the wound what is we saw on september 11th. afghanistan exacerbated. unfortunately i don't think we've gotten to the top how damaging our withdrawal from afghanistan has been. >> yeah. there is no question about that and that our government hasn't really learned the lessons of this in my opinion since joe biden was elected. we have 81 known terrorists who
focus on afghanistan. this was the nexus of everyone of the talking points that brought those eight years to the american people and yet through that all, through all of the lessons learned, we still have the mastermind of al qaeda eating subway sandwiches at gitmo. talk about you know, a black eye to the american way of, forget about the victims. forget about the families, this is about who we are as a nation. if we can't come to terms with military tribunals, civilian, get "judge judy," someone out there has to acknowledge this thug and the leader and get to the answers. you want to dispel conspiracies and nonsense you put the facts out there. you stand behind what happened on september 11th. both parties own responsibility here. will: so i think that's a fascinating place to pick up the conversation. the question that pete