Fanatical Military Recruiting

21Prospecting Objections

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

—Mike Tyson, retired professional boxer

Following the events of 9/11, record numbers of people stepped off the tarmac and behind the wheel. It’s estimated that in the aftermath of the worst attacks on American soil since Pearl Harbor, the national airlines lost up to 30 percent of their customers, causing the entire industry to teeter on the edge of collapse until the government stepped in to shore things up.

For days upon days, the 24-hour news channels blasted the horrific scenes of the planes crashing into the twin towers and the Pentagon, along with the last words of the heroes on Flight 93 before it crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.

It’s no wonder that people were suddenly afraid to get on planes. They imagined the horror of being trapped on a plane hijacked by terrorists. They saw themselves in those final desperate moments making their last call to loved ones to say goodbye.

Suddenly, travel by automobile, no matter how long the trip, seemed safer. People judged, based on recent events—the ones most available in memory—that their chances of dying were far lower in their cars than on a plane.

They were wrong. 2,977 people (not including the 19 terrorists) were killed as a direct result of the terrorists turning the planes into weapons. A conservative estimate is that 1,595 additional deaths occurred due to the increase in driving and decrease in flying immediately after 9/11.¹ If ...