Thoughts from the Tractor Seat: What Are We Defending?

Sep 10

Written By Columbia Community Connection

By Ken Polehn

The Dalles, Ore., Sept. 10, 2026 — This morning, as the country looked back twenty-five years, I remembered September 11, 2001.

I remember the images, the confusion and the uncertainty of not knowing what would happen next.

Then I thought of December 7, 1941—Pearl Harbor.

I wasn't there. I learned about it from my parents' generation, school, books and those who lived through it.

To young Americans today, September 11 is becoming what Pearl Harbor was to me: history.

But there is a difference between learning history and living it. We know the ending. They didn't.

On both mornings, Americans faced fear and uncertainty. Yet after September 11, we also came together. Political labels seemed less important. People gave blood, displayed flags and helped strangers. First responders and ordinary citizens showed us courage and sacrifice.

America wasn't perfect before that morning, and we weren't perfect afterward. Fear led to mistakes, and the decisions that followed remain rightly debated.

But we still understood that disagreement did not make another American our enemy.

Today, words like communist, socialist, and fascist are often used casually as political weapons. Perhaps the more important question is:

What are we defending?

The American experiment is the idea that citizens can disagree and still govern themselves; criticize government without fear; hold elections; limit power; apply the law equally; practice—or reject—religion freely; protect private property; question leaders through a free press; and recognize political opponents as fellow citizens.

These principles belong to all Americans.

Disagreement is a privilege of a free society. The danger comes when it becomes hatred, compromise becomes betrayal, and winning matters more than preserving the institutions that let us disagree peacefully.

Our world is changing again. Wars continue, authoritarian governments remain, and technology often turns disagreement into outrage. Americans increasingly live in separate political worlds.

That is why my thoughts traveled from September 11 to December 7.

Someday, few people will remember September 11 firsthand. Our grandchildren will learn these dates from classrooms and documentaries. But knowing the dates isn't enough. We must tell them about the uncertainty, the mistakes, the courage and the responsibility each generation has to protect freedom—even for those with whom it strongly disagrees.

We should also tell them about September 12, when frightened Americans saw one another as Americans instead of Republicans and Democrats.

I don't want another Pearl Harbor or September 11. America shouldn't need another tragedy to rediscover what we share.

Perhaps the best way to honor those who came before us is to remember what was worth defending before we are forced to defend it again.

We teach history knowing the ending.

But we are living history now.

And none of us knows how this chapter ends.

About the Author

I was born in 1961 into a second-generation farm family in The Dalles. I grew up on a tractor seat, moving irrigation pipe with my sisters before school, and spent my summers picking cherries alongside the children of migrant families who returned year after year. My wife, children, and parents have all worked the same land. I’ve served as county Farm Bureau president, sat on the county fair board, and continue to support 4-H and FFA. I’ve seen firsthand what happens when farmers are squeezed out—not just of business, but of the conversation.