I'd like to thank the GameMaster for allowing me a forum for this article. Proving the GameMaster isn't just in the business of gambling, but the business of the humanity in us all. Here in Las Vegas on 9-11 the city came to a halt. The casinos came to a halt as all table games were shut down so we all could gather around the televisions to hear the fateful news. But realizing the terrorists would like nothing more than to bring Las Vegas, as well as other cities across America to a halt, and so in the spirit of our town we carried on.

December 7th, 1941, the first day to live in infamy, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Later that evening as President Roosevelt spoke to a stunned nation, Japanese Emperor Yamamoto, who gave the final approval for the attack said to his staff "We have made a critical mistake, we have awoken the Sleeping Giant." The prophetic words never better said.

December 8th, 1941 in Manhattan the cameras rolled out to film the staggering lines of young as well as old Americans pushing in line to be the first to sign up to fight the enemy. (My father was in that line) That scene was played out in America, city after city, town after town, kids coming out of the hills of Tennessee, the swamps of Louisiana, as well as every corner of the nation to fight the Japs and the Nazis.

September 11th 2001, the second day that will live in infamy. The enemy may not have slanted eyes or wear swatzstikas, but they do have a face, they do live in some country or countries, they do have mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. Our resolve will be no less than that which lead us into WW II.

In my fifteen years of licensed flight, I can tell you with some authority, that it's next to impossible to take any airplane, and certainly not a large body jet aircraft, from thousands of feet (the planes were at level altitude, probably on auto-pilot), and manage to aim it at a precise target on the ground and even come close to that target.

A pilot knows to hit the landing point on a runway takes many changes in flight configuration. Power changes, flap changes, changes in elevators, changes in ailerons settings, changes in fuel settings all must be precisely done correctly to even line up a runway, changes in wind speed, air speed have to be determined well in advance of the landing to accomplish this. This takes is hundreds of hours of training in flying a particular aircraft, hundreds of hours of simulator flight, hundreds of hours of actual flight, not only in the actual aircraft, but a background in military aircraft to learn how to aim an aircraft to shoot a missile or machine gun. The Japanese kamikaze pilots of WWII were trained for over two years just to learn to aim a simple high performance single-engine Zero. These pilots, although having to fly through shrapnel from oncoming machine guns as well as larger millimeter guns from the ships they were trying to dive into, still couldn't hit the targets they were willing to give their lives for. In fact, only a few ever hit directly into any of the ships. So how could a full-size Boeing 767, a brand new aircraft, be aimed and directly hit a small target unless these terrorists were trained, and experienced pilots.

The answer is that it couldn't happen. I've flown simulators, I've seen 727 simulators, that even a minimal experienced pilot would have a tough time aiming at a runway from 5,000 ft. and hit the tarmac at a precise point on a calm day. This was a calm day, the visibility was 20 + miles, the winds were minimal, but like I said, a full aircraft, full fuel, maximum weight on take-off is so difficult to manage that most all commercial flights are now flown by computer. Flight computers have to be pre-set before take-off, and the flight computers are used almost exclusively from take-off roll to taxi-roll. So couldn't a terrorist be trained to set the computer, punch in the co-ordinance of the World Trade Buildings and crashed directly into them? The unfortunate answer is probably yes.

All three aircraft not only hit their targets, but also hit the targets exactly where they aimed them. The aircraft that slammed into the Pentagon hit the very side of a six-story building, not the ground first, they didn't over fly it by a few feet , they hit exactly as though set up in a gun sight and hit the target dead center. The same with the twin towers. They didn't clip a tower, they didn't overfly one of them by a couple feet, they hit it dead on. (Although it does look like the second WTC attack looks like the aircraft was turned left into the tower, a computer would have hit the tower in a straight and level descent as in landing on a runway, which would mean it would have had to be turned by a human hand) This for even a military pilot trained to aim a high-speed aircraft in a particular direction and angle-of-attack couldn't hit a small target like the Pentagon or Twin Towers so precisely as they did.

Military fighter pilots will tell you that missiles are aimed by computer, guns are also aimed by computer. The reason I'm explaining this point is that it DOESN'T take a highly trained pilot to do this. However, it does take master planning, master knowledge of the aircraft cockpit, knowledge of how to set a flight computer, knowledge of the co-ordinance to set the computer to hit something like the WTC or the Pentagon. In other words, big planning, big money, and more than anything KNOWLEDGE.

In a free society we have certain safeguards in place to protect our Constitution, to protect our government and people within our borders. But more important, the safeguards are set up to protect our freedoms that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." We don't live in a police state because we won't tolerate that life style. We don't vote in communists or terrorists because we won't tolerate their life style.

We hold our Constitution higher than any document ever written in the history of the world because we won't tolerate any other government. As well as it should be. Perhaps now every American will grab a copy of the Constitution and read it over. Remember why and how we got here today. We were attacked because of the freedoms we hold so dear. Our Constitution will be tested to it's limits and will overcome and endure thanks to the foresight of the founding fathers who could have never even dreamed of such events, but knew even two hundred and twenty five years ago that lives would have to be put on the line, some given to God in the name of COUNTRY to protect even the most basic freedoms.

To live in a free world, we have had to sacrifice American lives. We did it in 1776, we did it in 1918 and again in 1941, 1956, 1964-1974, again in 1991, and now we will do it again.

Young men will stand in line to be first to join the fight. In past wars, it was easy to spot the enemy, they were German, or Jap, and they had a homeland also. But remember that in the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt didn't ask to hunt down those pilots that were involved in the attack, but to hunt down the very country, the very core of the heart of the enemy, which then was the country of Japan. And so we can't be satisfied in hunting down the terrorists responsible for the attack alone, but the very heart of the homeland of the terrorists. We're not going to change their philosophies, but simply charge them for the toll, then to COLLECT our due-. This won't be so easily fought, the enemy won't be so easily found, but find them we will, kill them we will. We have the resolve, we have the determination, and we have our Constitution, and if all that fails, we sure got lots of guns and plenty of guys willing to shoot them at the right people.

Maybe now you'll do like I did ten years ago. Grab a copy of the Constitution, grab an American flag to hang out your windows, and learn ALL the words to God Bless America.

-Ken Pearlman