Can anyone really describe the feeling they experienced on 9/11? Today is the 14-year anniversary of that terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.

I was working at the newspaper in McComb, Miss., when another reporter scanning the Associated Press wire blurted out that a plane had struck one of the towers at the World Trade Center.

The first thought that crossed my mind was that it was simply an accident and that some airline pilot had made a terrible blunder of some sort.

Simply a pilot’s blunder turned out not to be the case by a long shot. Within minutes, the same reporter said the other tower had been struck. You could hear his voice quiver as her dispatched the horrible news that was unfolding. Everybody in the newsroom that day instantly knew there was some kind of conspiracy at work.

A third airliner soon struck the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a Pennsylvania field. In all, the world learned 19 hijackers were responsible for the attack on the United States. Approximately 3,000 innocent people lost their lives that day, including a large number of first responders.

Hundreds of police and paramedics rushed up the stairs of the World Trade Center in a heroic effort to help the injured moments before the buildings collapsed down on each other. For all practical purposes, war had been declared against the United States.

The government learned terrorists associated with al-Qaida were responsible for the unprovoked and brazen attacks on the towers. Attacking New York was an attack on the entire United States. It was a dark day for the country and people felt helpless.

The U.S. had to respond in some way and respond quickly, which it did by launching an invasion on Afghanistan to root out the terrorists where they lived and operated.

Not only does the world have to deal with al-Qaida, but other terrorist networks have sprouted up since like ISIS and Al-Shabaab. It seems that every new terrorist group is more violent and more evil than the one that preceded it, if that is at all possible.

I believe the ongoing refugee migration from Syria is manufactured by terrorist organizations in an attempt to flood the United States with terror cells. I think it’s nothing more and nothing less.

Europe will rue the decision to bring in the refugees. Europe simply can’t house and feed all those people, who just keep coming.

The U.S. Administration clearly doesn’t have an answer about fighting terror. It probably would be easier to combat terror by striking ISIS hard in Syria and letting that group and others know the U.S. means business.

However, the current administration doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers anywhere around the world. As a result, lives will continue to be lost.

Randy Hammons is a staff writer with the Daily News. He can be reached by calling 985-732-2565 or by email at randy.hammons@bogalusadailynews.com.