Remember where you were?

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol
  • 319th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
GRAND FORKS AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. (AFPN) --  People I have met from the World War II era still talk about where they were when the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, pulling the United States into the war.

Our generation, however, has another date that lives in “infamy” -- Sept. 11, 2001.

I have met people from New York who are still angry their city was attacked. I have met and talked with people who were in Washington, D.C. on that day and remember being scared to death they would be the next victims. In September 2002, I went to see the charred steel I-beams from the World Trade Center set up as a 9-11 memorial at the International Peace Gardens near Denseith, N.D.

The reminders of that day are everywhere, but I think the more important memories about Sept. 11 are what we as servicemembers and Americans have done in response to those attacks.

We have shed a lot of tears and remembered the families of the victims. We, as a nation, have made strikes on all fronts to protect our homeland and its people. We have become accustomed to a new mindset that our security is dependent on the vigilance of our people and their ability to adjust to change. Americans have reacted with strength.

Operation Enduring Freedom began on Oct. 7, 2001, effectively starting the global war on terrorism in the backyard of the terrorists. It is an easy date for me to remember because Oct. 7 is also my wife’s birthday. So while I celebrate my wife’s birthday with her, I also get to celebrate freedom and how on that day we began what eventually became the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban.

I was in Afghanistan a little more than a year ago. I went to Bagram Air Base and saw how the Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy, Coalition forces, and Afghani nationals were taking steps toward a democracy in that country. As a matter of fact, Afghanistan will hold its first democratic national elections in October. That alone is a positive result of Sept. 11.

Also last year I went to Iraq, where I served as a security escort for Arab media from England, including Iraqi journalist and novelist Khalid Kishtainy. At that time, Mr. Kishtainy had not set foot in his homeland since 1989 when his life was threatened by Saddam Hussein. During a stop in Basrah, he said, “Thanks to America, I can come home once again.”

Mr. Kishtainy’s words alone said to me that we are winning the fight in the global war on terror. He later told me in an interview that he, like many others, was shocked when the events of Sept. 11 unfolded.

I took a trip through Canada in early August. I remember stopping at a rest stop near a small town in Ontario where I struck up a conversation with a Canadian police officer from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Even though it was almost three years after the fact, he expressed how he and many of his countrymen were appalled by the attacks.

This police officer said my haircut gave me away as being a military man, so he asked me what it‘s like to be in the U.S. military. I told him it was an honor to serve alongside a lot of brave and steadfast people and I handed him an extra Air Force recruiting key chain I had with me.

When I crossed back over the bridge into Michigan from Canada, a U.S. Border Patrol agent took a look at my military ID and said a simple, “Thanks for what you do.” All I could say back was, “Thanks for what you do too.” After all, he had just as important a job in protecting our homeland.

The lessons of Sept. 11 are all around us and are always on our mind. For our military families, it has been just as much of a sacrifice. Since that fateful day, military families in all the services have sacrificed much and have adjusted to a war-time mindset. More frequent and longer deployments are just some things they have endured. But, like the toughness of the warriors on the frontline, military families are winning the battles on the home front and doing their part.

As a nation, we can never forget that day. But if we always remember where we were, what we were doing, and who we were, it will always serve as our battle cry.

As the terrorists lose, we will know that Sept. 11 will be remembered as a day that America, and the world, heard freedom’s call once again.