Notes from September 11, 2025 - by Mike Saville
Vice-President Jon Dearolf, filling in for President Cara this week, rang the bell and called the membership to order at noon. Dave Hartman came forward and reflected on the week’s events with the 24th anniversary of 9/11 and the assassination of Turning Point’s founder, Charlie Kirk, before offering the invocation. Members of the Legacy High School Jr ROTC joined us this week and posted the colors in remembrance of the 9/11 anniversary. Arnold Oliver then led us in the pledge to the flag and we followed that up with two verses of the “R-O-T-A-R-Y” song. We then all greeted each other in our normal Rotary fashion.
Jon explained that September birthdays would be recognized next week so we moved on to our visitors and guests. Alan Donaldson introduced his guest, Kirk Peterson from the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce and Norris Martin introduced his wife Dee Ann, Ms Debbie Bigot, owner of Annie Jewel and Charlie’s clothing store and “SPINS” wife, Petra van Steijn.
For the Sunshine report, it was great to see Richard Boyd back with us this week and then Steve Preister informed the membership that Glenn Tole was in the hospital but was expected to be released.
Carla Dowlen then offered the Brag Bucket to the membership and Alan recognized that last Sunday was Grandparents Day and he had visited his granddaughter.
As we moved on to announcements, Jon explained that we were all sitting with our flag teams as today was our next-to-last flag day of the year. He also spoke to Red Badge Members and reminded them that there is a Rotary Board Meeting next Wednesday and attending one of these is an item needed to earn the coveted Blue Badge. Any Red Badge member wanting to attend the Board Meeting was asked to contact President Cara to ensure there are enough meals and seats.
Josh Phillips then came to the podium for a check presentation to John Deason, representing the Rotary Park. Josh explained that for several years there was a local effort to try and get a historical marker to document the 1979 Tornado that had devasted the city. To expedite the ‘red tape’ in getting approval for a marker, the Club, through the Grants Committee, donated $2500 to purchase the marker which will be placed at the park.
Will Goodner then introduced David Adams from A1 Construction remodeling and Roofing to give a Member Spotlight. David explained he has years of experience as a general contractor and came to WF about 3 years ago from El Paso where he was a Rotary member there. Clearly it was El Paso’s loss and our gain when David joined our club.
Josh then returned to introduce our own “SPIN” van Steijn for the day’s program. On this occasion of the anniversary of the 9/11, SPIN, who is the Senior National Representative from the Netherlands and a T-38 instructor pilot for the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program at Sheppard Air Force Base spoke to us on the effects of the 9/11 attacks on the Netherlands. SPIN gave a brief geography lesson and showed the comparison of the size of the Netherlands compared to the U.S. In fact he showed a graphic that indicated Texas is 17 times the size of his home country. He used this comparison as a backdrop to illustrate the difference in the effects of the 9/11 attacks on each of the two countries. For the U.S. 9/11 was a “shock event” as the country asked how could this have happened? For the Netherlands, 9/11 was a “Focus Event”. It led to polarization and a critical attitude against Muslims. In essence, it was the start of Islamophobia; mosques were set on fire and Muslims were viewed differently. Then SPIN gave a timeline of events following the 9/11 attacks starting with the founding of Al Qaida by Osama bin Laden and how this organization detested the Western lie style. This was followed by the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 which gave bin Laden a safe haven. He explained that this invasion violated Article 5 of NATO and 19 countries including the Netherlands were involved in Operation Enduring Freedom. The 2003 invasion of Iraq following the capture of the dictator Saddam Hussein, left Iraq as a country without leadership. This resulted in chaos, civil war and even more terrorism. Then in the Arab Spring of 2010, North Africa and the Middle East were engaged in revolutions because the populace wanted to get rid of their corrupt governments. In Syria, the dictator Assad suppressed the revolutions which resulted in civil war that attracted terrorist organizations to join the fight in Syria. The goal at this time was to create an Islamic state in parts if Iraq and Syria. Then in 2014 Operation Inherent Resolve was launched by the U.S. against ISIS which the Netherlands continues to participate.
Across Europe during this time there was fear of terrorist attacks although none occurred in the Netherlands. He said the precautionary measure the Netherlands took included barricades in streets and the front of buildings, anti-terror laws, camera surveillance, preventive frisking of citizens, identification requirements, and the tracking of phone calls and e-mails. As time passed, some of these items were considered invasions of privacy as the country’s fear of terrorism subsided from a 55% fear in 2005 to just a 2.3% fear in 2013.
SPIN also indicated that the Netherlands was involved in the recent shootdown of Russian drones over Poland.
SPIN concluded his presentation with a Q&A and answered the long sought after question of how he got his call sign “SPIN”. He said it came from his first single seat solo flight where he was performing a loop maneuver and went into the clouds and spun to get out of the clouds. His instructor, in a follow aircraft, bestowed the name on him and it’s stuck!
Jon thanked SPIN for the presentation and told him that our speaker’s gift of a donation to the Wichita Falls ISD Foundation would be made in his name. We then closed the meeting with the Four-Way Test.