A veteran perspective on Sept. 11

Barbara Diamond

Early the morning of Sept. 11, Laguna Beach veterans will be

posting flags on parking meters and posts around town.

Uniformed members of the American Legion Post 222 and members of

the Women’s Auxiliary will spend the day recruiting veterans.

“We’ll be at the post office for sure and maybe down closer to

Main Beach,” said post Commander David Connell.

Connell and post Service Officer Hal Werthe were fishing on Sept.

11, 2001.

“Most of us on the ship, probably 30 or so, felt we had been

attacked by an Arabic country, not by terrorists.” Connell said, “We

thought it was a declaration of war.”

Jim Law, post historian and newsletter editor, was at home,

watching television.

“I immediately said the world will never be the same again, but I

didn’t think it was war. We knew in 1941 that war was inevitable; we

just didn’t know where or when. Dec. 7 was the trigger.”

Law saw the same wave of patriotism following 9/11 that swept the country after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but he doesn’t

believe it has the same staying power.

“I don’t think we feel the effect of 9/11 on the West Coast the

way they do in the East,” Law said. “And I sure don’t think we should

celebrate a disaster.

“We recognize Dec. 7, but we don’t celebrate it,” he said.

Coast Guard veteran Margaret Riutcel remembers sitting in front of

her radio on Dec. 7 and hearing about planes dropping bombs on Pearl

Harbor. Sixty years later, she sat in front of her television set and

watched planes being used as bomb to attack the Twin Towers and the

Pentagon.

“I didn’t connect 9/11 with Dec. 7 at all,” Riutcel said. “They

were two different things.

“I just wish we had waited a little bit and gotten homeland

security before we went to Afghanistan.”

Riutcel was working at San Francisco City College in 1941. She

joined the U.S. Coast Guard in 1943 and served for three years.