Seven years later: Remembrance and resolve

By Michelle Malkin  •  September 11, 2008 03:13 AM

Lan astaslem: Arabic for “I will not submit/surrender”

Remember: The 2,996 Project.

Remember: “Let’s roll!”

Remember: The angels on loan from God.

Remember: The 9/11 babies.

Remember: Falling Man.

Remembrance is worthless without resolve. Resolve is useless without action. Here is how “Never Forget” is practiced 24/7/365 by ordinary Americans taking extraordinary steps to ensure 9/11 doesn’t happen again:

Sgt. Desion Fulks watched the World Trade Center towers come down on television from Fort Rucker, Ala. He re-enlisted three weeks later.

Capt. Joseph Mason, a reservist at the time, immediately volunteered for combat duty after watching what happened in New York and Washington, D.C. He deployed to Iraq two years later with the first wave a troops.

“I was sitting at home, looking at the television, seeing the carnage of the Pentagon and the Trade towers, and I felt I had to do something,” he said.

Both men, and about 5,000 other soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas begin training at Fort Irwin on Thursday, the seven-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and one other commercial jet. Many of the soldiers, who will deploy to Iraq at the end of December, said the images of Sept. 11, 2001 still flash through their minds.

“I will never forget what happened on 9/11,” said Sgt. 1st Class Mark Linares. “It’s been so long since 9/11, but it is still in my mind like it was yesterday.”

Linares, who was with the 82nd Airborne Division when the attacks occurred and knew he would be one of the first soldiers on the ground where ever they had to go. Some soldiers in the 82nd Airborne were in Afghanistan the next month. Capt. Jennifer Bowersox was part of a unit that went to Kuwait when the ground war in Iraq began in 2003. She said then soldiers talked about Sept. 11 as their reason, and they still talk about it today.

“It must be on every soldier’s mind. It’s certainly on mine,” she said. “You’re wearing the American flag on your sleeve. You’re thinking this happened in my nation, and we can never allow it to happen in the United States again.”

And here’s how NY National Guardsmen who served as first responders at Ground Zero are putting “Never Again” into action:

New York Guardsmen in Afghanistan to Commemorate Terror Attack Anniversary
By Army Lt. Col. Paul Fanning
Special to American Forces Press Service

CAMP PHOENIX, Afghanistan, Sept. 10, 2008 – Men and women of the New York Army National Guard who served at Ground Zero are commemorating the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in Afghanistan this year.

A ceremony is planned tomorrow at this base in the Afghan capital of Kabul, and it will be timed to coincide with the first plane strike at the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. EDT.

More than 1,700 members of New York’s 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team are serving here with Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix, part of Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan. Its mission is to mentor and train the Afghan National Army and police, and provide assistance to the government of Afghanistan and its people.

The task force is led by Army Col. Brian K. Balfe, who is also commander of the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, which took over command and control responsibility April 26.

The task force is composed of nearly 9,500 servicemen and women from all U.S. branches, coalition partners and civilian professionals serving at nearly 260 forward operating bases throughout Afghanistan.

“The New York National Guard is the only part of America’s military team that has literally gone from Ground Zero to the Sunni Triangle [in Iraq] and is now here amid the mountains of Afghanistan,” Balfe said. “Soldiers from this brigade were among the very first to respond to the attacks and served at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and for weeks later.

“At least a third of the team that came from New York has also already served in Iraq,” he continued. “For those of us who were there, [who] served at Ground Zero, 9/11 is deeply personal.”

When the World Trade Center collapsed, hundreds of New York National Guard personnel were on the ground. By evening, 1,500 were there and thousands more were poised at more than 63 armories and five air bases around the state.

For the first 40 hours, Guard personnel were on the debris pile, conducting search-and-rescue missions alongside fire department, rescue, police and other emergency personnel. The New York Guard’s Civil Support Team for Weapons of Mass Destruction was the first unit of its kind to respond to a terrorist attack and was quickly mobilized.

On the second day, the civilian incident commander — the New York City fire chief — directed the Guard to establish a security perimeter and then sweep the pile to clear all personnel to better organize the search-and-recovery effort.

In the weeks stretching into months that followed, New York National Guard personnel performed a myriad of homeland defense missions in state active duty, federal duty under state control, or Title 10 active duty.

At the mission’s peak, when recovery and security operations were running concurrently, more than 5,000 New York troops were on duty in New York City; at 19 commercial airports; at bridges, tunnels and train stations; at nuclear power plants; and at military installations.

Not since World War II had the New York National Guard been deployed in such numbers for such extended time participating in both state homeland defense missions and federal military operations.

(Army Lt. Col. Paul Fanning serves in the Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix Public Affairs Office.)

While our men and women in uniform fight on the front lines, we can resolve:

To fight jihadi propagandists in our neighborhoods, schools, and on the airwaves.

To be vigilant John Does — willing to report suspicious behavior and illicit activities, even if it means CAIR lawsuits and smears.

To continue demanding homeland security, real borders, and immigration enforcement — whichever party is in power.

And to actively reject 9/10 thinking and 9/10 politicians and 9/10 apathy after the memorial candles are blown out.

What will you resolve today?

***

The Pentagon 9/11 Memorial will be dedicated and open to the public tonight.

John McCain and Barack Obama have agreed to a truce:

John McCain and Barack Obama were to observe a truce Thursday in their increasingly bitter White House contest with a joint appearance at Ground Zero on the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Their visit to the site of the former World Trade Center in Manhattan promised a rare break from hostilities in the frenzied last two months of the presidential race.

“There will be no speeches,” Democrat Obama’s spokeswoman Linda Douglass said. “This is going to be a moment when politics are set aside.”

Both Obama and his Republican rival McCain were to suspend campaign advertising for the day.

Heavy security was in place well ahead, with streets near Ground Zero closed and buses re-routed before ceremonies starting at 8:40 am.

Two separate minutes of silence were to mark the moments when the two hijacked airliners struck on September 11, 2001, destroying each of the Twin Towers and killing some 3,000 people — at 8:46 am and at 9:03 am.

Ceremonies included additional minutes of silence commemorating the collapse of each tower, as well as the traditional reading out of all victims’ names.

McCain and Obama — expected by staff to be arriving later in the day, after the official ceremonies — have promised to bury the hatchet in honor of the anniversary.

Along with remembrance and resolve, there must be recognition. Recognition of our enemies, where they live, and how they are enabling endless jihad against us. Here’s a beginning road map (via Allahpundit):