Published Sep 4, 2026, 11:58 AM EDT
How 9/11 Reshaped the US Military From the Ground Up
The institutions that grew out of that one morning still define much of U.S. military service.
Most people who joined the military after 2001 have never known a Department of Defense structured the way it was Sept. 10 of that year. The combatant command responsible for defending the U.S. homeland didn't exist. Airport security was run by private contractors, not a federal workforce. Special operations forces numbered in the tens of thousands rather than the tens of thousands more they field today. Twenty-five years later, the institutional scaffolding built in direct response to that morning is still the scaffolding most service members serve inside, regardless of whether they recognize its origin.
A New Command — Built From an Old One
