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I would have written this tomorrow but I'm going to be busy.

Saturday is the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and its not a cause for celebration. The forever war that that tragic event set in motion, just ended with the withdrawl of US and allied troops from Kabul, and now the country descends into chaos.

It might be the end of the forever war,or just a pause.

In 2001, I had been a year posted to RAF Colishall, and on that day I was on piquet post, controlling entry and exit from the bomb dump. As usual I had stuff to read, music to listen to, as even though there was a TV, I wasn't much for daytime telly.

It was an unremarkable late summer/early autumn day, I had Radio 5 Live on, and there was an announcement that a private plane had struck one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It was made to sound unremarkable.

A few minutes later, and a clarification, it was a passenger liner. I put on the TV and BBC news was already showing live footage of smoke pouring from one of the towers, when the second plane hit.

By now I was joined by many of my fellow armourers, and we sat looking at the pictures, stunned.

The rest, you know.

At half five, I locked up and went back to my room, having stopped off at the NAAFI for wine and Pringles, and watched the footage well into the night. I called my friend in New Hampshire, just to share what I was feeling, rather than see if she was alright.

I wasn't to know it, but that would set in motion some events in my life too.

Over Christmas, I colunteered to be on call as duty armourer, and so it was my job to unlock the offices first day back in the new year. I was in the piquet post when I was called into the Flight Sergeant's office: deployment to Turkey was imminent, I was to go to set up the bomb dump along with Dave Boxhall, go to stores to collect your war kit.

There was a kitting list, we were supposed to get everything on it. Only it wasn't all there, and what they did have, we should have got issued with two, we got one as "supplies were short", but there would be NBC suits and gas mask cannisters "in theatre". It did not inspire confidence.

Life changed, just like that. Next day we were to attend a day's training by the RAF Regiment, on field craft, using the hexi0burner and stuff like patrolling which in the next few days we expected to be doing in an actual war.

We were all put on two hour's notice to move, meaning we could go no further than two hour's travel from base and had to be packed and ready to move.

We waited.

Each day was tense, we went to work and each time the phone rang we flinched, but no news came. Rumour was that Turkey wouldn't allow NATO forces to use its base as the Turks feated a Khurd homeland would set up. The Turks had been bombing the Khurds from the same airfields as NATO planes flew to protect them. It was madness.

We never went to Turkey, never deployed. As the war progressed, it became clear that our planes, Jaguars, carried too little to use up landing slots on what airfields there were. After 73 days and at least a bottle of wine each night, we were stood down.

Friends who did deploy told of chaos, some got PTSD, other injured. ONe told me of going into Iraq in the first wave armed with just ten rounds of ammunition.

Back in the aftermath of 9/11, I mused that the US could react with kindness or fury. I was hoping for kindness, to pve the extremists wrong, and not take war to them. But we did.

Twenty years went by, hundreds of thousands of lives lost, millions displaced, $6 trillion spent by the US alone, and all for nothing.

We cannot bomb a country into democracy, even if we occupy it, we just don't have the resources to hold the whole country.

I guess we will go back for another round of forever wars, another generation of our young sent out to defent "western" values, values that allowed the corruption in the Afghan Government to flourish.

There never were any easy answers, easy solutions, no matter what was done would have had profound implications. Forever wars make defence contractors and arm suppliers very rich, and hoover up Government money. Will we learn this lesson? We didn't learn the lesson of Vietnam, so, probably not, sadly.

I left the Air Force three years later, jaded and disillisioned by what I had seen and the way the RAF treated me and my friends. I have no regrets.

Finally, like on the 10th anniversary, I won't watch the TV shows, I remember enough to last me another twenty years.

Stay safe.