My memory will forever be a celebration of life as my son came to life in La Jolla, Calif., a half hour before the first plane hit.

I was with my son while they took my wife to her recovery room about an hour after Nicolas Bradford Baum was born. My brother-in-law came and told me that I should go see what was on the television in my wife’s room.

Thinking this an inappropriate time to leave my newborn son, I resisted, but his persistence convinced me it was important.

What I witnessed was, to say the least, shocking, disappointing, and frustrating.

Shocking for the shear brazen boldness and magnitude. Disappointing that we had no defense and we let this happen. Frustrating because as I watched it unfold I knew, and said, that we were at war and I was in a hospital—a Navy Reserve officer with no chance to jump in to fight this enemy.

I was wrong.

I was mobilized as a reservist in January 2003 (my daughter, Alexandra, was less than a month old) and deployed aboard the USS Kitty Hawk with the Carrier Air Wing FIVE staff planning strikes into Iraq.

We’re still in this fight—I just completed five more years on active duty, returning to Delta knowing that it will be a long, long road to defeat the enemies who took our union brothers, innocent passengers, and fellow citizens.

Fraternally,

First Officer Kevin Baum, Delta