Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, Konnichiwa, Hawaii, Japanese language broadcast streaming live from downtown Honolulu, and available on YouTube. I am Yukari Kunisue, and joining me today in the studio is Reverend Takamasa Yamamura, head minister of Honolulu Miohoji, a very special Buddhist monk who grew up in a sword-making family, and professional background is Italian opera. Hello, everyone. From downtown Honolulu, Think Tech Hawaii is available in Japanese. Hello, I am Yukari Kunisue, a host. Today's broadcast is broadcast in Yamamura City, Miohoji, Honolulu, Japan. Yamamura City, Kamakura City, is a person who grew up in a Buddhist temple while studying opera in Italy. She has a beautiful role model. She was originally born in a traditional family in Honolulu, and is able to convey the meaning of her heart through Buddhism and politics. That's all for today. Thank you for your introduction. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming this time. I'm a little nervous. I'm not nervous at all. I have a lot of questions to ask you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your concern. First of all, I would like to ask you a question. You studied opera and woke up in a Buddhist temple, not in Japan, in Italy. Actually, I was born in an old house, so I used to come to the temple every month. I grew up in that kind of environment, so I made my own altar and worshiped it since I was a child. I see. I went to Tokyo when I was in junior high school. It was my first time. I was invited to the temple. Then I went to music school and went to Italy. I see. I studied opera in Italy. I have a temple in Italy. A temple in Japan? Yes, a temple in Japan. So you went to Italy. Yes, I went to Italy when I was young. I went to Italy with my parents. I see. I met a monk in Italy who was a Buddhist. I wanted to become a Buddhist by the power of various people. I was invited to the temple. I see. You have been practicing in your home since you were little. Yes, I have been practicing in front of my parents. My grandmother was doing chinti in the morning. I was invited to the temple with her. I have been practicing for a week. I have been a child for about 5 yen a month. I have made my own altar and changed it. My parents changed. I see. You made a Buddhist altar when you were in junior high school. I have been a Buddhist since I was a elementary school student. I see.  I am a Buddhist by the way.  I think the person born there is a Buddhist monk by the way. Yes, I think so. My parents are the same age as me. Yes, they are famous. My parents are the 24th generation. My 25th generation became a monk by the way. You were 25 when you were in junior high school. I have a son by the way. My son was 25 when he was in junior high school. I thought he would fly away. I couldn't do it. I see. You are going back to your childhood. I have been a Buddhist by the way since I was little. But music came in there. I was blessed with a voice. I was blessed with a voice. My Chinese teacher told me to stop the music. I said, you are a great voice. I was worried about it. You were put on the stage. Yes, I was put on the stage. I was given a voice like this. You sang in a small room or in the bath. I liked singing. What kind of songs did you sing at first? I sang Elvis at the Chinese school. Elvis? Yes, I sang Presley. I wrote a song here and sang it here. I sang it in French. I sang it in French. It's a bit old-fashioned. Both of them have a lot of influence now. I see. You sang popular music. Yes, I sang it. When did you become an opera singer? I was a child when I was a child. I couldn't imitate those three singers. I sang a lot of songs. That's great. I couldn't imitate those three singers. What is this? There are a lot of three singers. I was a singer. I was a singer. I was a singer. Did you understand? Did you understand? I'm asking you again. I was a singer. Pavarotti, Carreras, and Domingo. I tried to imitate those three singers. I couldn't imitate them. That's why I asked the teacher to listen to my voice. I was able to live more and more with music. Thank you very much. What did you study at school? I went to school in the first year of high school. If you think about it, I think I did it right now. You did it right. I didn't do it right, but it's gone now. I feel like I'm back now. I see. I think it's like a little bit of a tour. I think it's very unique. Are you still together in your own way? Like music and music? I'm not yet together. Are you still together? I think I'm not together for the rest of my life. Of course, there are a lot of communication. I'm sorry, but I'm on the top of the school. I'm not on the top of the school. I'm a singer with my own characteristics. I was born into a beautiful voice. I'm a professional in the school. I feel like I'm playing a bigger role. How do you say it? What is the point of setting and mixing? What kind of integration is it? Integrate? Yes, integration. Music and religion are both in the invisible world. There is no sound in the invisible world. There is no communication. It's a matter of mind. I see. There is such a communication point. Music and religion are also in the invisible world. It's a matter of mind. There is no communication. There is no communication. Music and religion are both in the invisible world. No, no, no. I think it's a deep conversation. There are a lot of communication points. What do you tell the people in the temple and the local people?  I think this is also a skill for music. This is well used and well done. The temple is the religion of Buddhism and religion. The place to learn. Also, the local people who come to the temple. The place to share the social security is the temple. So, I go out and tell them where to go. It's interesting that there is a temple like this. Originally, it was such a role. It's a temple for the people in the world of society. It's like a center of the center. Yes, there are various centers everywhere. Each temple is developed properly. Even in the temple, it goes back to the original role. Of course, those who are alive and those who have passed away are also included.  I see. There are a lot of Japanese people in Hawaii. There are a lot of Japanese people. There are a lot of Japanese people in Honolulu Miohoji. There are also a lot of Japanese people. Originally, the Japanese people were standing in the temple 88 years ago. It's the beginning. Now, there are Chinese people. Our president is also Chinese. There are Chinese people. There are Japanese people. Japanese people are also included. I would like to challenge the Philippines this time. You want to challenge the Philippines? There are a lot of Catholics in the Philippines. If you go deeper, there is one thing. I see. There are a lot of differences. In various ways. Now, the group of survivors of domestic violence is being used in the temple. The Philippines group is being used. There are 5 members of the group. In that way, our temple has some facilities and facilities. If you are interested, you can learn Buddhism there. If the person goes down the path of happiness, you will be the most grateful person. Domestic violence is a domestic violence in Japan. In the family, there was a mother who received violence. She went to Myohoji in the morning on Saturday morning. She was in a group. She was in a group. I was wondering what she was doing. It's hard to enter because it's a women's group. I was just going to the room. I wanted to do meditation once. I sat quietly in front of the headquarters. The environment is good because it's a good place for people to come and go. If you don't know Myohoji, there is the Nuanu-Kari Highway in Honolulu. The river is flowing and the trees are growing. Honolulu is a really beautiful place. Thank you very much. Next question. Can you sing a song? Can you sing a song with a woman? The merit is interesting. Do you have any problems with merit? I was told that I was too much in the past. I was told that I was too much outside. I was told that I was too much outside. I was told that I was too much outside. So I sang them more and more. The problem is your problem. You always need to sing as a woman. Diary is to open everything and let yourself be out and express yourself. It's a different from a kind of person. I don't think I am a kind of person. I'm a very nice person. But I'm very sensitive. I have a teacher. I'm very heavy. I have to be strong. I can't just be a person. I can't do that. My eyes are open. I can't do that. I'm sorry. So, you have to spread it out and open it up. It's an open field.  Calm down, you know. You know, when the teachers come out and sing, they all say they're grateful, but when you're doing so much work outside, how do you feel about it? I don't know where it is. It's like I'm singing my birthday song. That's why I have to do it properly. So it's cooking. Yes, cooking. I understand. I think it's quite a big deal now. It's just a very honest... No, no, no, it's not like that. It's a song. And it's a song that conveys the healing of the heart. Thank you very much. We're going to take a short break here and we'll be right back and stay tuned. Aloha. I'm Marsha Joyner, inviting you to come visit with us on Cannabis Chronicles, a 10,000-year artisty where we explore and examine the plant that the muse has given us. And stay with us as we explore all of the facets of this planet on Wednesdays at noon. Please join us. Aloha. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on Think Tech Hawaii every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join me where my guests talk about law topics and ideas and music and Hawai'iana all across the sea from Hawai'i and back again. Aloha. We're back from break. I am Yukari Kunisue. And this is Konnichiwa Hawai'i. Talking with Rev. Yama Buran, head minister of Honolulu Miohoji Temple. I'm live from Think Tech Hawaii. It's a Japanese broadcast. Konnichiwa Hawai'i. Today is Honolulu Miohoji. It's a Japanese everyday practice. Honolulu Miohoji. Yes, we're talking about Honolulu Miohoji Temple. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm happy to continue. Thank you very much. I have been a lawyer of this temple. I also get to talk about the lyrics. So, I'd like you to listen to the part where the main character is singing. Which part of the song do you want to sing? This is the Prince Hotel. Prince Hotel. The Monorail Hotel. Yes, the Monorail Hotel. I think it's JWSH. There was a festival at the Japanese National Assembly. It was fun. There was a festival, but I had to take some time to change my clothes. So I wanted to sing something. Please sing something. But it was very popular. Is that so? Okay, we are ready to listen to this music. How was it? It was a very unique video. Which part of the song do you want to sing? In the Prince Hotel, I sang a part of the song in a big fashion show. I see. Recently? I think it was last year. I see. So you want to sing in the Honolulu fashion show? Yes. I have to be careful. I think it's good for many people to listen to it. It's a women's show, so it's 9% women. I was so nervous that I didn't know what to sing. I don't know what to say about it. Do you choose the song you want to sing? Yes. It's a song that makes you happy and easy to sing. I think it's a song that you can sing when you are on an event. For example, when you sing a song, you don't mix it. No, I don't mix it. In the past, I used to sing in a place like Shinjuan's Peace Concert. I used to sing in a place like Shinjuan's Peace Concert. I did that. Basically, opera is a song that makes you happy and easy to sing. At that time, I was told that it was a good song, so I let it be. I see. I don't have much of my own consciousness. No, that's not the case. Basically, it's a separate song. Basically, it's a separate song. However, if you have a request, you can do it. Let's take a look at a little bit. Is it a mantra of Buddhism? Yes. And it's called a shomyo. Yes, shomyo. Yes. We only know Buddhism. Yes. Buddhism has a lot of characteristics. Yes. It feels like the characteristics of the Kirisuto Temple. Is it also Buddhism? It's a shomyo. I think that if you sing a song, you should wear a hat. Actually, we don't wear hats. It's not a song. Actually, we wear hats to support Buddha. Is it for the benefit of our hear? I'm not a shomyo. I have to learn every time to become a monk. Actually, it's not music. It's a kind of music for you to play. It's a little different from the music we're playing now. I think it's a little bit of an incident. I see. We were talking about the healing of the heart. I play yoga sometimes, but when I do yoga, breathing is very important. And I also breathe when I do meditation. I breathe for a long time. I wonder if opera singers can communicate with that. Is that so? When I look at it as breathing, I think it's similar to singing. But the way you voice is different from singing. Opera singers have a completely different voice. In the way we're talking now, the voice is like that. Of course, there are a lot of voices from the stomach. I'm doing it, but meditation is a chanting meditation. It's a chanting meditation. The consciousness is concentrated on the voice, and when the voice is concentrated on the breath, it becomes a meditation state. I see. As you know. How does that connect to the healing of the heart? Rather than the healing of the heart, I think it's a research of mindfulness, but it's about living the present. I'm worried about the past and the future. When I concentrate on the present, I concentrate on the present, I concentrate on my breath, and I concentrate on the present. At that time, it's almost a state of non-belief. When I breathe, I'm going to go into hypnosis. I concentrate on it again. When I breathe out, I concentrate on the healing of the heart. When I do it, I concentrate on it. After that, it becomes very clear and the heart appears. I don't think about useless things at that time. We have a lot of negative thoughts. It's too much to think about. Of course, it's important to think about it. I'm sorry to say this, but I have a lot of mental thoughts. From that point on, I'm worried about the future and the past trauma. It's not like that. It's all the same. It's all the same. It's all the same. When I sing, I do it like this. I'm going to concentrate on it. I don't think about anything else. I'm going to go somewhere else. At that point, I'm going to be healed by my own mind. But I'm going to have fun. I'm going to have a lot of people do it. I'm going to have a lot of people do it. It's all about being healed by yourself. It's the same for everyone around you. It's the same for everyone around you. I think it's important to show your image. It's a very unique project. If you are interested in the activities of Mio Hoji or if you are interested, please contact MAMURA JUSHOKU. Thank you very much. Honolulu Myohoji went from Nuan to Mori in Minikawa from Nihonryoji. When we went to Nuan Avenue, we all went in the wrong direction. We were a little bit in the wrong direction. It's easy to understand, so we went in right away. If you want to come to the temple, you can always come in when you are open. If you want to listen to the story, you can come to Nishio Raihai on Sunday. What time do you come to Raihai? It's 10 o'clock. It's 10 o'clock in the morning. It's free to attend. If you can call me, thank you. I often go out. Can you call me? 8 0 8 5 2 4 7 7 9 0 5 2 4 7 7 9 0 Can you give me an email address? Yes, please. Honolulu Myohoji. Honolulu Myohoji is M-I-O-H-O-J-I. AtmarkHotmail.com Yes, that's right. Today, we have Hotmail, Hotmail, and Hotmail. Recently, we had a renewal. Yes, I understand. It's almost time. Thank you very much for coming today. Thank you. We are out of time. Thank you very much for coming. Stay tuned for more shows in Japanese. Thank you all for watching Think Tech Hawaii. I am Yukari Kunisei, your host. This is Konnichiwa Hawaii. See you next time.


Yeah, welcome back to Think Tech. This is Community Matters. I'm Jay Fidel. It's a given Tuesday morning at 9 o'clock. And we are still memorializing commemorating 9-11. And we have a show for you that you probably haven't heard a lot of this before. General Dan Figleaf was in the Pentagon. He is one of our hosts. He has a couple of shows, figment shows, on Think Tech. And he's kind enough to join us today to tell us about his personal experience and personal perspective on 9-11 in the Pentagon. We've seen a lot of footage, and we've seen a lot of analysis of what happened in Manhattan. But we haven't seen as much of what happened in the Pentagon. So this will be more information, perhaps, than we ever heard before about the Pentagon. Thank you so much, Dan, for appearing this morning. You bet, Jay. Happy to be here. I'm happy to be a Think Tech host. I know it's good. It's all good, mutually good. So, Dan, tell us about your experience. I assume you were a general officer at the time in the Pentagon in 9-11. Where had you been before that? And what were you doing in the Pentagon? Well, I was a relatively new one-star on the Air Force operation staff in the Pentagon. My previous assignment, I'd been an F-16, actually, a combined wing commander during the Air War over Serbia, Kosovo is known to some. So I'd come from a combat environment to what I thought would be peaceful and sedate Washington, D.C. On the operation staff, I was kind of in charge of the future of the Air Force. I was the director of operational requirements. So we looked at the future and looked at threats. And I was in my office on the E-ring, but probably two-thirds of the way around for more of the aircraft eventually struck when I saw the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center on a news report. Did you know at that moment that there was a problem? I mean, a lot of people felt, well, it was a small plane, maybe a Piper Cub, who knows. Only one building could be an accident, just an anomaly. Did you know at that instant moment there was an attack? No, I didn't, and a couple of the other majors who worked in my outer office, I called them, and we watched it and watched the reports that kind of went through exactly what you said was an accident. It was the clearest day ever, as many have said. And so that didn't make sense, but it didn't make sense. It was the bottom line. I went back to preparing to brief the brand new Secretary of the Air Force, Jim Roche, on the F-22. That was next on my schedule that morning. And I looked up from the papers I was reviewing and saw the second plane dig in to a turn to hit the second tower. And at that moment, it was clear it was intentional. And I knew we were under attack. So what were your thoughts, what were your actions? What were the thoughts and actions of the people around you in the Pentagon? Because if you recognized that I'm sure other people had the same snap judgment of what was going on. Yeah, and I wish my recollections were clear, but there are two things that's all kind of blurred. And secondly, I have a hard time even looking at the real bonafide chronology to say what happened when. But in essence, we all migrated to our Crisis Action Center, our Operations Center, in a lower level of the Pentagon, we being their porous key staff and leaders. And I don't remember that being directed. I think it was just kind of the natural thing to do. And so we went down there and began looking at what was happening and trying to figure out what was happening in an immediate sense. Were there more hijacked aircraft? I believe it came pretty known pretty quickly that these aircraft had been hijacked. And we had cable news network up on the big TV and a conference room that probably held 20 to 30 people. And we're trying to figure things out. What was the mood in the room? I mean, me, I recall coming to the conclusion that the world is changing right in front of my eyes, it will never be the same and a certain amount of anxiety. What about the generals in the room with you? Well, there wasn't time for anxiety, frankly. There's work to do, figure out what's happening, figure out what to do about it. And I count for personnel, that wasn't yet a problem because the Pentagon had mistracked. I never saw any chaos in the Pentagon. I was not near the wedge that was hit, but it was very orderly. We had a large group of more junior people who kind of migrated down to the crisis action center and they were all clustered outside. And I'd say there was probably more anxiety there because they didn't have anything to do. But we were just going through that process when we saw the report that the Pentagon had been hit. And this is the way I remember, Jay, but I don't remember hearing or feeling anything when the aircraft struck the Pentagon. It's a big, very well-structured building. It was kind of on the other side of it. But I'd been near a major ammo dump explosion where I'll penny Pockstone in 1988. And that was a religious experience. So my first thought was, how can this be true? But I didn't hear, I didn't feel it. And then the alarms went off and smoke and fumes started entering our spaces. Wow, and I guess it was time for evacuation. Not really, we had work to do. And the first action I remember was somebody standing on the conference table ripping the fire alarm out of the ceiling and cutting one of the wires to it with a scissors so we could talk. So there wasn't any indication of significant fire or damage near our space. So we kept working. We prepared for evacuation. I went out, again, I'm on the operation staff. We had planners and acquisition and logistics. So I don't know if somebody told me to do this or came to mind from my own experience in a house fire as a young boy and told all these people or clustered around to make a human chain down the hallway to the exit and get on the floor so they'd be below any smoke and they could guide the whoever was evacuating out down this labyrinth of hallway to the exit. Visibility was being affected. I think so, you certainly could smell it. And that was disconcerting because we were several, two levels down, I guess, from the ground level and smoke is bad. I'd experienced it before. I didn't like it, but we have worked it. What did that smoke smell like? It smelled like death, burning jet fuel and death.  Wow. Yeah. And I, you know, I can't prove that that's just that was the first thing I thought. Yeah. Okay, so tell me what happened then. So now we know we're under attack. And at this point, the Secretary of the Air Force and the new Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the key leaders were both down in the conference room. They had been in their respective offices only days, one day and two days. I forget who had just one day. So I knew the Chief. I didn't know Secretary Roach well yet, though I later would, of course. But so we had decided what to do. How do we maintain continuity of operations? Keep command and control at the headquarters Air Force. How do we account for our personnel and do we evacuate? And at some point the decision was made to evacuate from the Pentagon. There were helicopters available from blowing, blowing Air Force base across the Potomac. And it was decided that the Air Force senior leadership and as a one star, I was not senior leadership in the Pentagon would move over to our command post there. And I was directed to go up and organize that movement from the river helipad up by the river entrance. And that was because I had some background that had helicopter units when I was a group commander. And so I grabbed another cell phone because I wasn't sure my personal one would work and went up to the river entrance jail. Say it, share one sort of a side there. The only time I felt really fearful was going out the entrance to go up to the helipad. And I was scared to death that the Washington monument which it was right there wouldn't be standing. That's irrational. But that was the sense of magnitude of the day. And thankfully it was, but that was a deep-seated fear when I opened the door to exit the Pentagon into that beautiful day. Well, at this point, you knew there had been a double attack in Manhattan. And one on the Pentagon, of course. I mean, it's clear there's smoke and when I went out there were medical gauze pads blowing in the wind like snowflakes. And yeah, so we knew we were under attack. There was no question. Do you know about Flight 93 into Pennsylvania or coming to the Capitol at that point? No, I learned about that kind of later. While there wasn't chaos in a human sense and an information sense, it was absolute chaos. And we were trying to sort two things. So while I was up getting, we got four Huey's in from over at Bowling Air Force Base. I'm waiting to move the senior leaders up from this command post to the helicopters to take them to Bowling. I've finally gotten through on a cell phone. I stayed on that line for command and drill for a couple of hours. It's the only link we had. Two of the defense protective services guards came running up to me. And by now they had kind of had cavalry around half-hazardly and had their long guns. And they came running up to me and said, sir, there's another aircraft headed towards Washington DC. What do we do? And then they just froze. They just, so I grabbed one of them by a collar and I said, well, if you see an airplane, you get behind that wall and you get behind that wall. I didn't know. What else are you going to do? But now my concern is we've got, no, we did not know, but that made sense. I mean, it's certainly rational, given the immense that unfolded that another airplane would be headed to Washington DC. And now I've got these helicopters exposed and I'm about to expose the secretary chief and other senior leaders to get them to the helicopter. So that was kind of a quick decision-making matrix to run through with the ops center and we decided to evacuate them. Well, one of the factors had to be that whether there was one identifiable fourth aircraft coming in is that the country itself was under attack and that you did not have information to establish one way or the other, whether this was an attack in other places in other ways. No, we didn't know that. It made sense that there were other aircraft that were hijacked and frankly, for a couple hours after the attack and after we moved the key leaders over to the other command post at Bowling, we've spent a lot of time sorting through, were there more, were there still more as you know, they quickly emptied the national airspace, really a remarkable accomplishment. Let me say, Jay, that that was not our responsibility at the Air Staff. The Air Staff is not an operational headquarters at the Pentagon. People sometimes forget that. That was responsibility of first Air Force down at the, excuse me, Tindall Air Force Base floor. What about the president? Was he on your radar, so to speak? He was in terms of news reports. Though we knew where it was at the time of the attack, we knew they were moving him, but that movement wasn't, was something we kept the word and said that we weren't controlling. He went to a sack base, as I recall. He went to Barksdale Air Force Base first in Louisiana, stopped there relatively briefly and then to Austin.  I remember knowing of that debate, but not being part of it. Was there a scramble that morning, Dan? There were. Okay, in fact, I've got a picture on the wall. That's right over there, be in the other room. Beautiful print of an oil painting of an F-16 over the burning Pentagon that was given to me as a gift that I don't like very much, because yeah, we responded, but it didn't work. So I don't know that we should celebrate failure.  So that was too late. The intention of the scramble was to catch another plane, another hijack plane, and shoot him down, yes? Yes.  Then they did scramble. Then what authorities do they have and what do they do? And there's plenty out there on the web to hear the stories of the pilots and those involved as controllers in that mission. And I recall too, that when the Pentagon was evacuated, there were virtually thousands of people. Pentagon has a lot of staff in it. And they were all out on this grassy lawn overlooking the Pentagon at some distance, looked like 100, 200 yards. What was happening out there? Yeah, I mean, they, well, I wasn't there, but I did see people evacuating as very orderly. And I think by and large, many of them evacuated to the south of the Pentagon, the south parking lot. And in fairly large number, got in their vehicles and left, I think. But the Pentagon was not truly evacuated. Secretary Runseld never left. I have an inside story on that, that I don't think's ever been told publicly. But at the air staff, while we evacuated our senior leaders, many of us stayed in the Pentagon and kept working the issues, if you will. And while the building burned for a number of days, that's another of the DVD quality memories that I had was going and driving by building is it still burned. But so the Pentagon was not evacuated. Many people were, but it wasn't in full and the staffs kept operating. A comment on the architecture. You know, it's unique architecture. It's the military. Do you have any thoughts, did you have any thoughts about the architecture and the resilience of that structure as against this kind of attack? Yeah, it was designed as a hospital, as you probably know, and then converted to our major military headquarters. Five rings with space between each of them. A really remarkable building. I'd like to say I hated that building before because I'm not made to work in Washington, D.C. and I loved it on September 12th or the 11th already because it survived so well. As I said, I didn't even sense the impact. One of the strokes of great fortune for those of us in the building, probably for the nation is that the one wing that they hit, the wedge, there are different wedges around the Pentagon, was I think the first one to be renovated, including strength and structure and glass and everything else in modern fire suppression equipment. And that was going to be a sequential renovation, but that's where it was struck and that limited the death and damage to some degree. Was that building destroyed or partially destroyed? Well, it wasn't a separate building, but it cut like a knife through it. And it was rebuilt and the best thing you do. It looks like a slice of cake, but a thin slice has been taken out of it. How much loss of life was there that day in the Pentagon? A hundred and some, plus those on Flight 77, the aircraft that hit. I was pretty scared. More than 2,000, including over 400, I think, first responders. And in New York, so as you said at the outset, that gets a little more attention. It's understandable. Yeah. So what does it mean for an attack to be made on the Pentagon? There's something, yes, they made it a symbol, it was symbolic, it was against Wall Street. And yes, Flight 93 was probably intended for what the White House or Congress. The capital is what's generally speculated. Yeah. That was, that had its own bizarre circumstances. And I would like to talk to you about that. But the one against the Pentagon is, it's more than just symbolic. I mean, they intended to disrupt command control and the military in general, right? I don't know. I can't presume the intent of the hijackers and planners. I don't know if their primary intent was symbolism or primary intent was operational impact. I would guess it was more symbolism. That is the symbol of American military power to much of the world. Flight 93 was pointed at the capital coming in from the West. And that would have been a scramble possibility. Yeah, it departed later. It was delayed for some reason. So they may have successfully intercepted Flight 93 if it got towards the national capital reach. But it wasn't close enough at the time it crossed over Shanksville. Right, it was not. But had it proceeded towards the capital, who knows, we may have had an intercept. Those people who overcame the terrorists on that plane are true heroes, imagine. Yeah, and I don't know that they're any different from the people on the other three flights. They had the advantage of knowing through their phone calls to loved ones and I think to airline work centers what had already happened. So as this unfolded on the other three flights, who knows what they thought until the moment that they started diving at the buildings they struck. Yeah, can you imagine? But let's look at you for another moment, Dan. So you have a special perspective, perspective of a long time senior officer in the Air Force, perspective of being there, a perspective of going to that briefing room with the others and being part of the Air Force response team, if you will, military response team and trying to figure out what had happened and what to do. What is your perspective? How do you feel now? Myself, I have a perspective even though it's based in Hawaii, but what is yours? I think that I'll share my perspective now and I don't know that it's changed much. First of all, I have a job to do, right? I've worked to do it. We got the folks evacuated. I came back into the Pentagon. We were doing the task of figuring out how many were there any other airplanes, the immediate response, what was next and accounting for all Air Force personnel who'd been assigned in the Pentagon. We were able to do that pretty quickly. So I had to do that. Then I was told that I'd be the first night crisis action team director. So we had the center node for command patrols, the crisis action team. And because I was on the operation staff, somebody, probably my boss, the three star said, okay, I think you're gonna be the first night captain director. So get back to bowling, which is where my house was anyway, where I lived at the time. And so I went and did that. And then we just continued Air Force operations, figuring out what had happened, what was currently happening and then beginning to plan the response. And I did that for, I think two months as opposed to my operational requirements job. So I basically worked for two months, not 24 seven, but close to it, just doing the work of keeping the Air Force running with a big team of people. I'm just a one-star man, just doing my job. How did Air Force operations change that day? Well, we have a very specific attack and threat to deal with. And that became more of our focus. And generally the Pentagon is more long-term focused than near-term focused. I can't, you know, I haven't been on active duty since 2008 retired then. So I'm not sure what the environment is now but we transitioned much more to looking at the now and near-term and what we're gonna do about it as well as being hypersensitive almost to a fault to the potential for a follow on attacks. And that was a big change. I told you that we had a number of questions that came in that have come in on the show and I wanted to pepper them to you. I'm sorry, they're not necessarily in a sequence but if you'll address them the best you can. One question we covered to some limited degree is when it became apparent to us was under attack were there thoughts or plans of retaliation, mobilization of US air power? Not only of scrambling but retaliation and mobilization in general. We began planning, really examining what we had available for a military response. And of course that requires the president to decide at the Congress to authorize it as they did in the authorization military. But we immediately began looking at what assets we had, what assets we might reposition, what we knew about potential target sites, target sets, you know, if asked to respond with a lethal force, what could we offer? Again, the Air Force doesn't do that as a headquarters that relies on the geographic combat commanders, in this case, US central command. And so, but we began looking at what we could bring to that fight and what we could do to be better prepared should such an authorization come. And that would focus on bombers carrying all manner of bombs, am I right? All of our capabilities, bombers, fighters and I'll just say all of our capabilities. Got it. Okay, let me go to some of this other. Yeah, you must have been pulled in multiple directions. This one questioner viewer asks, how did you deal with the attack while simultaneously executing the mission that was given to you? That must have pulled you in two separate directions. It did, but it's a matter of, you know, discipline, you know, as I said, in the military, if you don't practice discipline every day, you're not gonna be able to do it when people are shooting at you. And they weren't shooting technically, but I thought we were well-disciplined and we divided up tasks and took care of business.  My daughter, Yateng, was later served in the Air Force in Iraq and Afghanistan, was 16-year-old high school sophomore, miles from Pennington, she might have been a junior. Anyway, a young lady, I couldn't talk to her for eight hours. She didn't know if her father was alive or dead. She knew the Pentagon had been attacked. When I asked her- You weren't supposed to call. I was busy and you couldn't get a cell call anyway. I was doing my job and she knew that. We had flown combat from home during Kosovo and Aliyan at our base. And I asked her when I finally talked to her how she learned and she said they made an announcement, got people in the auditorium at her school and she said, kids are crying and screaming because they had TV on. And I asked her, well, did you cry? And she said, dad, what good would that have done? Now, she's an extraordinary human being and a great person and leader, but I mean, that's kind of the approach you got work to do. So you do the work and you can have time for tears and fear and everything else later, but we had work to do and everybody did it. I'm telling my story because it's my story, but there was no chaos. There was no panic. We did our jobs. Okay, how did you deal with the incoming messaging, incoming media? You know, you had public response, media response that you had to be familiar with. You had internal response to communications among the components of the Pentagon. And you had various options on the table with various people commenting and offering counsel and advice and all of these, I mean, the communications must have been flying around you internally, externally, reports and messaging galore, no? Well, thankfully the media response, per se, was not my job. I mean, it's an important job and, but my role as crisis action team director in those first moments was to figure out what was true, what might be true and what was false because of this avalanche of reports and information. And I did something I've learned as a wind commander in combat when one of my aircraft was shot down. We just got every whiteboard we could find portable whiteboard and had people transcribe reports on the whiteboard. And if it got a point where it might be true, we'd underline it. If it was true, we'd circle. And if it wasn't, we'd line it out. And that was the only way to kind of sort through are there three more hijacked airplanes over California? Which I think was one of the reports. And so you're just parsing information, eliminating the obviously incorrect, false, erroneous first reports and then trying to sift up, if you will, to what is true. And that was, you know, that's a intellectual endeavor that requires a lot of analysis and verification, all that stuff. And critical thinking too, you know. So one of the things you mentioned a minute ago is that you were prepared or considering the possibility of deploying resources to Central Asia. At some point, any point during that day, did you become aware, did the Air Force become aware that the origin of these terrorists was in Central Asia? I don't remember J-1 when we knew. I think it was quite early. And I think it was that day. I think the speculation about Afghanistan that started heck had been in, we're all pending Pakistan in 1988, when a big ammo dump or shipping stingers blew up. So, you know, we had, so many of us had a awareness of the threat. There'd been a previous strikes and interests on al-Qaeda and bin Laden's assets that hadn't worked. And of course, previous terror attacks. So, I think it happened pretty quickly, but I can't tell you at X o'clock who we knew. And attribution was not, it was a concern, but not our first concern. The other thing is that these planes had been hijacked. They'd been flown, at least in New York and obviously in the Pentagon, into a building intentionally. And that was clear to everyone in the world. But did you think, was there concern about the fact that these terrorists had been trained to fly the planes? Did that scenario, you know, pop up in the discussions? Was it considered, was it relevant? It was not relevant on that day. You know, that's the forensic work to figure out how this happened. And it wasn't relevant because it would have been relevant to have the question then, is there gonna be another plane? But there was no more flying. You know, the entire airspace was cleared. All the planes were grounded. They eventually, I don't know when we returned to some air carrier operations, but at the moment, I don't care if they're trained pilots because there are no planes. Yeah. That is the matter. And that was the point of grounding all air traffic because if there was another plane, it would have been among that air traffic. If there is no air traffic, then further attacks are minimized. And that still to me is one of the most remarkable undertakings in my military history. And it was a civilian military effort, the FAA, Canada's airports and airspace managers. If it's rafters, it happened quite rapidly. Yes, I remember. Okay, so there you are. And you see what happened in the World Trade Center. You see what happened in the Pentagon. And ultimately you see what happened in Flight 93 in Shanksville. You know, was there a reaction? Did you have a reaction where others around you reacting to say, wait a minute, how could this happen? What about our intelligence capabilities? Why didn't we know this? The Air Force and the military in general is inextricably intertwined with some intelligence. And I imagine a senior officer would say to himself, wait a minute, why didn't we know this? Did you say that? Of course, I think everybody did, but not perhaps with the same tone you're describing because again, what good would that do to quote my daughter? We didn't know how it happened, so it didn't happen again.  And I'd submit that in retrospect, some of our responses were not rationing intelligence wise. I think we overdid it. It's now clear that if we had simply better communication between CIA and FBI about activity, they knew very well of and call them or before the attacks, the attacks could have been prevented. You didn't mention the Air Force itself though, Dan. Is the Air Force responsible for having intelligence on this? Is part of the intelligence effort to defend against this kind of attack handled within the Air Force? And was there a discussion about that, whether it was handled or should have been handled or should be handled that way in the future? Well, there was a lot of discussion about that, but the Air Force's role is military intelligence. Internally, we have the Office of Special Investigations which has a counterintelligence role, just like I think NCIS does and Army CID, but that's not our focus. That's the job of the FBI Defense Intelligence Agency to some degree, National Security Agency, CIA externally to the United States. So it's a matter of roles and responsibilities. So it's not that we didn't look deeply inward. It's that problem existed outside the primary purview of Air Force intelligence. Does the Air Force share intelligence with these other intelligence agencies? No, not at all. Of course we do. And I'm not making light of it because intelligence sharing is challenging, but of course, and there's a significant Air Force presence in intelligence-related functions outside the Air Force. So there is good interconnectivity. There's simply a breakdown in communication between a couple of other agencies. I work mostly with intelligence agencies in a variety of jobs that I had. That's what all detail I can go into, but yeah, there's good connectivity. We don't operate in isolation. Okay, moving on to the last question we received from a viewer, which is an interesting question and I'll preface it by saying, even now today, there is the possibility of documents that may shine a dark light on Saudi Arabia as a party who knew or was some way responsible or could have stopped this attack. After all, unless we forget, Osama bin Laden was from Saudi Arabia, unless we forget also that the Saudi Arabian delegation was permitted to leave or spirited out of the country immediately after the attack, for reasons that were in my observation never made clear. So the question, and then taking it also from the point of view of the United States and the United States military has connections with other countries. We bring their people here for training and I guess for making friends, good soft power relations and so forth. And one of the countries that we have dealt with over the years have been Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia pilot trainees included. And I wonder if there was a relationship of any kind with Saudi or between Saudi or, well, I don't wonder, a question has been posed here. What was the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the Pentagon? Well, that's not necessarily between Saudi Arabia and the Pentagon. The Pentagon isn't a standalone organization but we have forces deployed in and around Saudi Arabia. In fact, I served a tour in Riyadh as the director of operations for our Joint Task Force Southwest Asia. We were actively at that time enforcing no-fly zones and I believe so in 2001. So we had a presence there, we had some training activities and of course many, much of their military equipment was purchased from the US. As for their forensic look back at who knew what in Saudi Arabia and what role they played, I think that what needs to be done and the outcome will be interesting but the focus should always be on the future. What do we learn from that? What do we do regarding our future relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Who shot John Grassy and all the stuff? Interesting and necessary but it's far more important to focus on the future. I totally agree. So Dan, you had a very interesting and diverse career there for us. So I guess one has to have a career like that to reach three stars and to do the things you've done. But Query, where does this event, where does this particular day and the mission in the day fit in your career? And part of that is how did it change you? How did it change your perspective of the Air Force and terrorism and the world since then? I know it must have been important but how important was it? Both at the day and after the day? It was an important and emotionally significant day and incredibly significant to the nation, the Air Force and my experience had exposed me to the problem of terrorism. I had five former subordinates who were killed in the Cobart Covers Army but my personal experience in direct combat with the enemy in the Ghostville War was far more important because kind of what felt formed by my beliefs about war and morality and the important aggressive pursuit of peace much more than September 11th. But I'm not trying to minimize it, but I'm just saying I go back to that. So it may have reinforced or modified but it was another problem to solve. Yeah, one last question is this. 9-11 left a big impression on me and everyone I know at the time and 20 years later it became a time for remembering and we've seen a lot of the media to help us remember, to make us remember some of which has been pretty painful. But I just wanted to ask you one last question that is what message would you leave with people about 9-11? As I said on my pigments yesterday the revenge is a fool's errand. If there's anything I'd say I remember the anger that we felt and it manifested myself in my mind with wanting our enemies, the perpetrators to have the same terror on their faces that those running from the tornadoes of dust and debris in New York City had on their faces. That's how I thought about it. But then vengeance isn't mine and we needed to think broadly about protecting not just our nation from attack but also the liberties inherent to our system and the long hunt for Bin Laden, for example, I think became a matter of revenge. So deal with the protect the nation, realize that freedom brings risks and that we will never be a risk-free society and deal, don't invite risk but don't waste our precious people and limited resources trying to make the world a place that will never be. Do our best with purpose and principle and accept the risk of murder. Thank you, Dan. Dan Figleaf, free star, retired Air Force general and host on Think Tech Hawaii. Exactly, I knew you get the last in. I love being a citizen journalist as you call us on your great platform. Thanks for having me, Jay. I hope this was helpful for some viewers. We'll all be there. Thank you, Dan. Aloha.