"I thought you said you’d never forget”: A conversation on 9/11 with author Elliot Ackerman

Inside the Hive

Vanity Fair

News

4.2 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2021

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, co-host Joe Hagan talks to novelist Elliot Ackerman, a veteran of both the Afghan and Iraq wars, on the meaning of 9/11 and the long-term impact on American life, politics and culture. A critic of the Biden administration’s exit from Afghanistan, Ackerman has struggled with feelings of bitterness over the wars that defined his life and redefined the nation. As media and politics have become more extreme and polarized in the 20 years since 9/11, the country has become more cynical and demoralized, less able to unify in a crisis. An optimist in a pessimistic time, Ackerman looks for signs of hope in America's founding ideals--enlightenment, reason--even if the country never quite lives up to them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there, it's Molly Jongfast, Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair.
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0:38.2	Welcome to Inside the Hive.
0:40.1	This is Joe Hagan, your co-host with you today on this 20-year anniversary of 9-11.
0:48.3	Last month, the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan and left this terrible, terrible mess, which
0:55.2	was proof that 9-11 is still producing tragic consequences even two decades later.
1:01.5	And then we're still processing that profound pivot in history.
1:05.7	What it means and how it changed us as a nation, changed our politics, our media, the whole
1:11.7	atmosphere of our country.
1:13.4	Today, I have guest Elliott Ackerman, former Marine and veteran of the wars in Afghanistan
1:18.7	and Iraq, a best-selling novelist and memoirist whose life and career have been defined by the
1:25.6	consequences of 9-11 on a very personal and visceral level.
1:29.2	Elliott, welcome to Inside the Hive.
1:31.4	Thanks for having me, Joe.
1:33.3	You were 21 years old on 9-11.
1:35.1	You deployed five times to the Middle East.
	...

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