American Heroes Read online

  LCpl Jake Knospler gets a visit from President Bush on his birthday

  At one award ceremony I attended in Iraq, twenty Marines received the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in combat. Their injuries were incurred in some of the toughest gunfights I've ever seen. By the midpoint of their seven-month deployment, 116 Marines in the battalion had been wounded in action, yet seventy of them chose to stay in the fight even though, as a consequence of multiple wounds, they could have gone home.

  I asked Lt. David Dobb, who sustained injuries to his hand, why so many of these young men decided to stick it out even though they'd been hurt. "This is what these Marines signed up to do," he told me, "and we're going to see this mission through until the job's done the way it is supposed to be done."

  Sgt Kenneth Conde, a squad leader with the 2nd Bn, 4th Marines, was leading a nighttime raid when insurgents tried to ambush the platoon. In the ensuing fight, Sgt Conde was hit in the shoulder by enemy fire.

  Though badly wounded, Sgt Conde stayed in the fight and refused to be evacuated until after the engagement. After being patched up at the aid station, he was back with his squad—even though he could have had "a ticket home." I asked him why he decided to stay. "There's no other choice for a sergeant in the Marine Corps," Conde explained. "You have to lead your Marines."

  That has been the overwhelming attitude of the young American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen, and Marines I have been covering since 2001 all around the globe. They are in harm's way, far from home and loved ones—often in the most arduous conditions imaginable while their countrymen are tucked safely in bed. They are on duty 24/7 for months on end. Though most are too young to buy a legal adult beverage, they have already had more responsibility entrusted to them than their civilian peers will be granted in their lifetimes. And they do it all with grace, humility, and courage that should make anyone proud to be called an American.

  That's what heroes do.

  Soldiers provide security during a cordon and search in the Jihad area of Baghdad

  To see more American heroes and download three of Oliver North's War Stories episodes for free, go to http://www.olivernorthheroes.com.

  1

  THE JIHAD

  "We love death— the Americans love life—that is the difference between us."

  —Osama bin Laden in a videotaped message following 11 September 2001

  "War is our best hobby. The sound of guns firing is like music for us. We cannot live without war. We have no other way except Jihad . . . . The Americans love Pepsi Cola; we love death."

  —Maulana Inyadullah, Afghani Muslim fighting alongside the Taliban

  "All who hate me love death."

  —Proverbs 8:36b

  WAKE UP CALL

  At 0830 on 11 September 2001, when I boarded a Northwest Airlines flight from Detroit to Washington, D.C.'s Reagan National Airport, there wasn't the slightest hint of trouble. As usual, a ticket agent gave my driver's license a cursory glance, to verify that the name on the reservation matched the name on the license, and handed me a boarding pass. As usual, none of the semi-somnolent "security" personnel inquired about the "Leatherman" tool in my carry-on luggage. And as usual, we took off for our destination. Shortly thereafter, "usual" ended forever in the United States.

  As our flight approached Reagan National Airport, the pilot suddenly announced over the public address system that we were being diverted to Dulles International Airport, twenty-five miles west of our nation's capital. He didn't tell us what much of the rest of the world already knew until we finally landed amidst scores of other unscheduled aircraft and dozens of police cars:

  • that American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 had both been hijacked from Boston's Logan Airport and turned into flaming kamikazes, slamming into the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center;

  • that American Airlines flight 77, outbound from Dulles to San Francisco, had struck the west side of the Pentagon; and,

  • that United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco had crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

  Passengers disembarking from our flight were told to evacuate the airport immediately. Heavily armed police officers escorted us across the tarmac to a parking lot. They wouldn't even allow checked bags to be retrieved.

  When I managed to commandeer a cab, the driver initially refused to take me into Washington, citing radio news reports that the city was being evacuated. The offer of a hefty tip convinced him to at least try.

  Shortly before noon we arrived at the Roosevelt Bridge—only to be stopped at a police roadblock, barring traffic from crossing the Potomac into the capital. The westbound lanes of the span were crowded with cars fleeing the city—like an evening rush hour. The eastbound lanes were devoid of cars. Instead, thousands of pedestrians were walking west into Virginia. Off to our right, a plume of black smoke darkened the sky above the Pentagon.

  Following the 9/11 terrorists attacks, civilian and military personnel evacuate the Pentagon as injured victims are loaded onto ambulances for transport to a local hospital

  When I explained to a Virginia state trooper that I was trying to get to the FOX News Bureau on Capitol Hill, he summoned a police officer who offered me a ride in his cruiser. As I handed the fare to the cab driver, he volunteered in a heavy accent, "Osama must be made to pay for this." I asked the driver, "Where are you from?" He responded, "Afghanistan."

  The death toll on 9/11 was finally determined to be 2,974. "Experts" tell us that anyone ten years of age or older that day will never forget where they were or what they were doing when the world's worst terror attack was perpetrated in America. Certainly, that's true for me. The horrific images of an airliner tearing into the World Trade Center's south tower, the two 110-story structures collapsing in a cascade of debris while New Yorkers ran for their lives, the scene at the Pentagon when I got there that evening—are all seared in my memory.

  A New York City firefighter attempts to clear his eyes of soot during rescue efforts at the World Trade Center

  Military service members render honors as fire and rescue workers unfurl a huge American flag over the side of the Pentagon during rescue and recovery efforts on 13 September 2001

  Three days after the attack, President Bush declared Friday, 14 September 2001, as a national day of "prayer and remembrance" for the victims of the terrorist attacks. Members of the U.S. House and Senate stood on the Capitol steps and sang the hymn "God Bless America" in a remarkable show of unity not seen since.

  Sometimes it takes a terrible tragedy for people to see their need for God. Confronted with terrible evil, Americans have sought divine help before. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both prayed publicly for the nation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's prayer for America in the opening salvos of D-day is a beautiful example:

  ". . . for us at home—fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them—help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice."

  Regrettably, it is also part of the human condition to quickly forget the need for prayer once we perceive that a threat has passed and "normalcy" has been restored. This makes the words penned in 1632 by Renaissance poet Francis Quarles particularly poignant today:

  Our God and soldier we alike adore

  Ev'n at the brink of danger, not before;

  After deliverance, both alike requited,

  Our God's forgotten, and our soldiers slighted.

  Since that deadly day there have been a multitude of investigations, presidential commissions, reports to Congress, accusations, rebuttals, legislation, and a massive reorganization of the federal government. We have strengthened airport security, expanded our intelligence services, restructured the FBI, increased the size of our armed forces, and engag
ed Islamic radicals in what has been called a "Global War on Terror." And of course, everyone now knows that the architect of all the coordinated carnage was Osama bin Laden.

  Unfortunately, he's just the latest and most visible manifestation of the Jihad being waged against us.

  Osama bin Laden

  WHO IS THE ENEMY?

  "Know your enemy" isn't just a hackneyed military slogan; it's an essential survival tool in this new world order of global Islamic terror. We've learned the hard way that the global War on Terror will not be short, cost-free, or without losses. But we can reduce our losses by knowing our enemy and acting accordingly.

  Unfortunately, the same American culture that makes blockbuster movies like Gladiator and 300 gets squeamish when it comes to pointing out that those who are trying to destroy our way of life are, almost exclusively, radical Muslim males. After 9/11, many people scrambled to assert that Islam was, in fact, a religion of peace. Proponents of such a theory have a delicate dance to perform—one that necessarily skirts around the many references in the Koran that advocate open war against the infidel, which today has become a synonym in Jihadist language for "Westerner."

  Millions of Muslim boys are today being "educated" in Islamic religious schools—called Madrassas—that center around the recitation and memorization of the Koran. For many of them, it's their only educational option. These are schools in name only; the vast majority of them teach no math, science, history, or computer classes.

  Few of the graduates of these insti-tutions will ever have read a book other than the Koran and texts about the teachings of Muhammed. Unfortunately, hatred fills a large portion of the curriculum. Many of the young men who emerge from these Madrassas have been thoroughly indoctrinated with the belief that America is controlled by Jews, who are in turn controlled by Satan. What's worse, they will have learned that death is their first and best calling in life. They have become "holy warriors," compliant "martyrs" for the Jihad—the "holy war" against the infidels.

  THE KORAN, ON HOW TO TREAT INFIDELS:

  • al-Anfaal (8):39—"Fight them, till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah's entirely."

  • al-Taubah (9):123—"O believers, fight the unbelievers who are near to you, and let them find in you a harshness."

  • Nisaa' (4):91—"If they withdraw not from you, and offer you peace, and restrain their hands, take them, and slay them wherever you come on them; against them we have given you a clear authority."

  • al-Taubah (9):5—"Then when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush."

  • Nisaa' (4):74—"So let them fight in the way of Allah who sell the present life for the world to come; and whosoever fights in the way of Allah and is slain, or conquers, we shall bring him a mighty wage."

  • Muhammed (47):4—"When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks, then, when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds; then set them free, either by grace or ransom, till the war lays down its loads."

  To make matters worse, few Westerners seem to comprehend the two dangerous—and perversely synergistic—themes that predominate in modern radical Islam:

  1. the apocalyptic belief of Shia scholars, clerics, and political leaders—like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—predicting a violent, "final" clash between Muslims and infidels in which Islam triumphs, by wiping "nonbelievers" from the earth, and

  2. the predominantly Sunni Muslim goal of an Islamic Caliphate that extends from Casablanca in the west to Bali in the east.

  The vision of a globe-spanning Islamic theocracy is not new. In AD 632, following the death of Muhammed, his followers named Abu Bakr as caliph, or successor. He resolved to spread Muslim theology, with its message of equality and strict rules of behavior, through force of arms. His goal of Islamic dominance has survived a bloody Sunni-Shia schism, the rise and collapse of the Ottoman Empire, two world wars, communism, and the fitful spread of representative democracy through most of the rest of the world.

  From "Jamal," a former Muslim who converted to Christianity and now lives in Europe.

  "I started to regularly visit the mosque for prayer at the age of twelve. Hatred toward the West, mainly the U.S. and Britain, is preached almost in each of the five daily prayers. Islam is indeed a religion that takes its impetus from hatred and anger. It cannot survive without an enemy.

  "The first thing I was taught by family, religion and politics in the Mideast is that hating the Jews, or Israel, is the first step of being on the same side of Allah's feelings.

  "I remember going . . . on a trip with the mosque; we started singing Islamic praise songs, mainly about the wars and battles Muhammad fought, then about how we will fight the Zionists one day. It soon escalated to shouting death to Israel, America, and the West altogether.

  "I remember the euphoria I got out of shouting with anger along with tens of others who were on the same side as me. It didn't matter who the enemy was; what mattered then, to my young mind, is that I belonged to a group. America was a plague with its talons, Israel, in our midst. So were my thoughts back then.

  "I later became a Christian. To understand the extent to which we are brainwashed, you only need to learn that this was the hardest single decision I have ever made. I sweated for months before I took that step. We were brought up to learn that Allah is so eager to punish humanity. I was committing an act of treason against a god whom I was told would put burning coal under [a Muslim]'s feet till their brains start to boil for the sin of lying. Just imagine what we were told he wanted to do for those who were not his followers in the first place!

  "I lived my whole life thinking I had to work hard to be perfect and powerful so that God would love me and that I should hate non-Muslims so God would love me. Then I realized while I was a Muslim that I would never have God's love because I was not perfect.

  "Then my pastor explained that God loves every one, I was amazed that God actually loves everyone because that meant one thing: that God loves me!"

  OIL FUELS THE JIHAD

  President George W. Bush described America's insatiable appetite for oil as an "addiction." He should have included the rest of the planet as well—for all of us are, through this addiction, helping those who hate us.

  My old Webster's dictionary defines the word addiction as an "obsessive dependence" and offers as examples "drugs, alcohol, and gambling." Oil isn't mentioned, but my dictionary is an early 1970s edition—printed before the 1973 OPEC oil embargo.

  Neither Webster nor Mr. Bush point out that in order to "feed their habit," addicts must pay out mountains of cold hard cash to very unsavory characters who are often as deadly as the addiction itself. That has always been the case with heroin or crack, and today it's increasingly true of petroleum.

  Despite promises of "transparency" in Middle Eastern financial flows since 9/11, there is still no way to track how much oil money is being sent to radical Islamic mosques, "charities," or identifiable terror groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, or Al Qaeda.

  Today's fiery leaders of "the religion of peace"—both Sunni and Shia—have instigated and sustained a Jihad, fueled with petro-dollars, paid by the very people they perversely describe as their enemies. Sheiks, imams, mullahs, and ayatollahs routinely expound the virtues of "martyrdom" and vicious treatment for Christians and Jews—and use the money gleaned from petroleum to finance the expansion of their Jihad.

  Some political leaders in the U.S. maintain that by becoming "energy independent" we can better protect ourselves from the violence of the Jihadis and the uncertainty and expense of importing oil from the Middle East. To this end, advocates of exploiting our own petroleum reserves, our massive deposits of coal, bio-fuels, and energy sources such as solar, wind, and nuclear power all emphasize that these alternatives will make us safer.


  These ideas may or may not make sense from an environmental perspective. But even if the United States achieved total "energy independence" from Middle Eastern oil, it would do little to "de-fund" the Jihad being waged against us.

  The cost of drawing a barrel of oil out of the ground is less than $30.00 per barrel. The price on the world market for oil—more than $120.00 per barrel at this writing—is set by supply and demand. The difference between the real cost of oil and the price we are willing to pay means that despots, tyrants, and terrorists are awash in petro-dollars. Even if the U.S. stopped buying Middle Eastern oil tomorrow, the price would likely drop for only a few months, then return to present or higher levels because of demand from China, India, Europe, and Africa.