Military

Attacks of 9/11 sent Rep. Eli Crane into the military and shaped the way he views the Iran war

Twenty-five years ago, the 9/11 terrorist attacks changed the trajectory of the life of an Arizona college student. Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) is a three-term congressman who chose, in the first few days after the horrific attack, to leave the classroom and travel thousands of miles away to take the fight to al Qaeda. “A […]

Twenty-five years ago, the 9/11 terrorist attacks changed the trajectory of the life of an Arizona college student.

Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) is a three-term congressman who chose, in the first few days after the horrific attack, to leave the classroom and travel thousands of miles away to take the fight to al Qaeda.

“A lot of folks became law enforcement officers, nurses, et cetera after witnessing that, and so I’m just grateful to be a part of that generation,” Crane told the Washington Examiner in an interview.

Provided by the office of Congressman Eli Crane (R-AZ)

Crane’s time as a Navy SEAL and his tours, including in Iraq and the Gulf, ultimately shaped the way he views war, even the current U.S.-Israel war on Iran. Crane said his experiences made him very cautious about sending troops into another conflict as the United States walks deeper into the overseas fight with Iran.

“It’s tough because I do feel like the government lied to us a lot, made decisions on single-sourced information or intelligence,” Crane said about the U.S. in the years after 9/11. “When we go to war, I’m a lot more skeptical than a lot of people might think. And so, yeah, definitely, it makes me really question. And there’s nothing wrong with that, asking questions. I think we should be asking questions about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it. But that’s how looking back on that experience really affects the way that I try and conduct myself as an elected official.”

Crane had plans to join the military and said his parents had encouraged him to enlist as an officer after completing college. That plan changed on Sept. 11, 2001. Crane was a few weeks into his senior year at the University of Arizona on that fateful day.

“I took the next couple days, thought a lot about it, prayed about it, and then within a couple days, I called my parents and I told them that I was going to be dropping out of school to join the Navy, hoping to become a Navy SEAL,” Crane said.

After several meetings, he was on a plane headed to Navy boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois. Boot camp was not as difficult as the Army or Marines, Crane said, but he would face far more challenging weeks in training as he pursued becoming a SEAL.

Provided by the office of Congressman Eli Crane (R-AZ)

He reported to the Navy post at Coronado Island off the coast of San Diego for SEAL training. The hardest week of training, he said, is known as hell week, which he made it through, only to come up short at the end.

“You go about five and a half days straight, and you get about three to four hours of sleep total, and you’re getting your butt kicked the entire time,” Crane said. “They’re constantly trying to, you know, take you in and out of hypothermia during evolutions called surf conditioning.

“You’re also doing a bunch of running, calisthenics, obstacle courses, swims,” he said. “The worst thing for me was running with a [bucket] on my head. The way I describe it to people is: go to Home Depot, get a five-gallon bucket, fill it with about 35 to 40 pounds of weight, put some rubber on the bottom of it, and run around with it on your head as fast as you can.”

Crane was told to try again in a year, but that year turned into two tours aboard the USS Gettysburg, which lasted two-and-a-half years. 

“It taught me, when I fail, get back up, improve myself, become more mature, become a better teammate,” he said. “I needed that work. I needed that maturity, and so that gave me the time to do it.”

One tour was spent in the North Atlantic Ocean, and the other was in the Gulf, where he saw firsthand the U.S.’s contentious relationship with Iran while his ship and other U.S. vessels were moving through the Strait of Hormuz on several occasions.

“Our chief weapons officer brought all of the weapons division into the combat control center and said, ‘Hey, we’re about to go through the Strait of Hormuz. It’s this very narrow gap,’” Crane recounted. “‘We need everybody manning the weapons and on standby because a lot of times Iranian gunboats, many of them will swarm out and head right for the ships, right for our convoy, and pretend like they’re going to attack us.’

“I was thinking to myself, ‘No way. There’s no way they’re that crazy,’” he said. “We had an aircraft carrier in front of us. We had, I believe, we had a submarine or two with us. We had several combat ships. We had helicopters, all the support that comes with a carrier. And sure enough, as we were going through the Straits of Hormuz, I think it was 25 or 30 small Iranian gunships started coming towards our ship.”

” data-large-file=”https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/5-CEC-–-Washington-Examiner-9_26-e1789054863954.jpg?w=696″ src=”https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/5-CEC-–-Washington-Examiner-9_26-e1789054863954.jpg?w=696″ alt=”Provided by the office of Congressman Eli Crane (R-AZ)” class=”wp-image-4721099″ style=”aspect-ratio:1.5229938113310766;width:484px;height:auto” srcset=”https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/5-CEC-–-Washington-Examiner-9_26-e1789054863954.jpg 1024w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/5-CEC-–-Washington-Examiner-9_26-e1789054863954.jpg?resize=300,197 300w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/5-CEC-–-Washington-Examiner-9_26-e1789054863954.jpg?resize=768,505 768w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/5-CEC-–-Washington-Examiner-9_26-e1789054863954.jpg?resize=150,99 150w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/5-CEC-–-Washington-Examiner-9_26-e1789054863954.jpg?resize=696,457 696w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”>

Provided by the office of Congressman Eli Crane (R-AZ)

Crane’s experience during that tour influenced his thinking about the current war in Iran. The Iran war is a “very tough, difficult issue” for Crane because, he said, the country would be “incredibly dangerous” if it were allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.

However, Crane added that he has been hesitant to support any troops on the ground there.

“I know the president is in a very difficult situation, and I just pray that this conflict comes to a successful conclusion as soon as possible,” Crane said.

Crane returned to Coronado Island and successfully completed SEAL training on his second try. He did not expect to deploy immediately but was assigned to the Bravo Platoon of SEAL Team Three and put into prisoner of war training in order to get him ready to go overseas as soon as possible.

“It was kind of a surreal feeling because I’m thinking, ‘I’m flying into a war zone, by myself, no weapons,’” he said. “You have no idea what that’s going to look like when you touch, when you land on land in Iraq or wherever you’re going.”

Crane was initially in Iraq for three months with around 200 other SEALS in 2006. He was responsible for manning the gun on the vehicle, carrying machine guns when out on foot patrol, and for sniper watches. He saw several other new SEALS, including Marc Alan Lee and Michael Monsoor, killed in action.

Crane did three tours with SEAL Team Three, including on the platoon overseen by Chris Kyle.

Provided by the office of Congressman Eli Crane (R-AZ)

As he transitioned out of service, Crane and his wife, Jen, launched their own company called Bottle Breacher. Within a month of leaving the military, the Cranes were featured on the hit entrepreneurial TV show “Shark Tank” and struck a business deal that was inundated with orders.

The two ran the business over the next decade out of Arizona, where Crane grew up and returned following his military service.

“I tried to make everything in the U.S. … I wanted to make sure that mission was incorporated into what we were doing in entrepreneurship,” he said. “I think that’s one thing that led later on to me running for office, because I was just watching the direction our country was headed.”

It was during this time that Crane began to consider a run for public office. He was concerned about the national debt and the country’s financial situation, lawmakers who never seemed to leave office, and security at the nation’s borders.

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“One of the things that I was taught to think and look at things as a SEAL was, if I wanted to commit this crime or if I wanted to attack this, how would I do it?” Crane said. “If you’re an adversarial country or some adversarial organization to the United States and our way of life, I mean that would be one of the first things that I would do if I knew that about the border. I would send as many of my operatives into the country as possible via that open border or any way that I could.”

Provided by the office of Congressman Eli Crane (R-AZ)

Now in his third two-year term, Crane said he’s regularly home in his Arizona district to be with his family and the constituents he represents in Washington. He said he has followed through on vows to join the Freedom Caucus, to fight excessive spending, to oppose socialism and “woke ideologies,” and to provide enhancements to border security.

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