Post 9-11 Tributes here...

**Resident Smart Ass** · 09-10-07, 08:09 AM

**Elle** · 09-10-07, 08:40 AM

I have one in the video section http://www.lawenforcementforums.com/...ad.php?t=19842
Kick ass avvy by the way

**Buttercup** · 09-10-07, 11:07 AM

This has probably been posted before, but I think it bears repeating.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NIbIXNfuUPM

**Willowdared** · 09-10-07, 04:21 PM

Here's another K9 tribute

http://www.ctlegalguide.com/SlideShow/caninetribute.htm

And a people version

http://www.ctlegalguide.com/SlideShow/slideshow.htm

**Willowdared** · 09-10-07, 04:38 PM

A piece from one of my favorite blogs - one of the first blogs started by a service man. Now in book form: My War by Colby Buzzell

Tuesday, September 28, 2004
In The Service Of The Queen
Here is an e-mail I recieved from my B.C.:

CBFTW,
Yours is a voice that many have heard. We have not simply heard what you have said; we have, and continue to, listen to what you are saying. Far too often we simply carry on an inner dialogue when someone else speaks to rehearse what we will say when they finish. This war on terrorism will be with us for some time, so I offer an open letter to the generation I will pass this burden on to.

I believe that we are making progress in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Despite the ravings of pundits and uninformed ambulance chasers, this fight doesn't' hinge on oil or payback. It isn't about religion or race. And it damn sure is not about any innate desire to rule the world. These people will succeed or fail on their own merits. The task is daunting. You can release a person from bondage. You can remove a tyrant from power. You can create the conditions for liberty. But, you cannot simply grant or proclaim freedom.

Freedom without honest action is a whisper in a storm just as change without vision and purpose is the illusion of progress. For ages these people were literally beaten to the point of submission by oppression, censure, murder,torture, and rape - regardless of age or gender. I have asked myself why they let it happen. The only answer I can fathom is that evil flourished because good people refused to pay the price required to oppose it.

Sure, it's easy now to pontificate and blame the poor and down trodden for their collective indifference, but forgive my sarcasm - I think we owe them more than a couple of days to realize that their hopes and dreams have a chance to grow and one day flourish. No amount of rhetoric and no pressing agenda will change the fact that time is required to help heal these people and that ancient grievances require redress.

Make no mistake: I'm no crusader -I do what I do because I am a professional soldier. For me it's been simple: protect the innocent, punish the deserving, accomplish my mission and bring my men home, period. As Sting said "Poets, Priests, and Politicians have words to thank for their positions." For a soldier it is black and white:deeds not words.

If you need words to better illustrate, the Latin mottos of two Infantry Regiments I have served in will suffice: "Sua Sponte" and "NeDesit Virtus": Of their own accord and Let Valor not fail. Or in true cowboy fashion: Saddle your own horse, cull your own herd, and bury your own dead.

The threat we face is like nothing we've seen before. I've been in the streets with this enemy, fought him face to face, and have been lucky enough to kill him and come out alive. I have seen what he is capable of doing and the zeal with which he will do it. This threat won't fit neatly into "the box" or be governed by any paradigm. It is a cancer within our collective body as the human race. We are all threatened by this evil, and evil it is. This enemy has twisted and distorted things both sacred and profane to guide as well as justify its means and its stated end. Nothing is beyond the realm of the possible when it comes to the depths to which it will sink, the horror it is willing to commit, or the suffering it is willing to inflict. This enemy has no concept of mercy nor does it recognize combatants. Innocence is not a factor.

You need only look at the headlines of the day to confirm that children, teachers, and doctors are murdered everyday by these villains. What makes them evil? I submit that it is not the act that earns them the epithet of evil - it is the intent to commit and the pride they draw from the act. These animals revel in the post act announcements that they are responsible. They feel vindicated by the proclamations that they perpetrated these horrors in the name of God and that having committed the seacts some how elevates them.

Make no mistake, this enemy is formidable but by no means invincible. To defeat this cancer requires the one thing that civilized people all over the world possess in absolute abundance - The will. The will to be free can only be surrendered by the person that has it - it cannot be murdered, raped, tortured, or stolen. It's not about being a martyr or a saint, it's about being a decent human being. And, the unvarnished truth is that the killing and the horror will continue until those with the will to endure prevail.

I am a simple soldier, proud to serve, but my days in the service of the Queen are drawing to a close. Soon all of the cold war junkies will also begone and you my friends and your band of X generation anti-heroes will have the reigns. Like it or not, you are now the fulcrum upon which the balance beam rests. I will tell you that the outlook is damn good. I am absolutely humbled every day to have the rare privilege to march among the young menand women who chose to give soldiering a try. None finer have ever served under the colors.

Beware the onslaught of false prophets who preach the one size fits all solution. Look beneath the facade of their self proclaimed patriotism, peelback the shield of their dogma, and you are likely to find a charlatanmalcontent who was passed over for some accolade he feels he richly deserved or a flim-flam artist who knows a chance to make a buck when he sees it.They don't have the will to endure. The will to be free comes at a heavy price. For some it is more than they can bear. Divorce, estrangement, financial burdens, health problems, depression, and even suicide are very real costs.

Sacrifice is rarely recognized for what it truly is because the price of recognition is guilt. Parades, giving medals, issuing promotions,and rousing speeches are simply the thin veneer that masks the desperate need of those who are kept free by our endeavors for absolution from this guilt. Adam Duritz wrote in the song Mrs. Potter's Lullaby that "the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings."

I submit that it is our love of freedom, the embrace of our wives or sweethearts, the love of our children or family, and the earned respect ofour brothers in arms that cast the walls that make the will to endure afortress that can never be taken. I will be proud to stand the watch untilmy time is at an end, but soon you will mount the ramparts and stand thewatch alone.

In closing, I leave you with the words of Marcus Aurelius "Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness."

**Willowdared** · 09-10-07, 04:48 PM

A wonderful article by Tony Parsons, on the first anniversary.

"Shame On You American-Hating Liberals"
Tony Parsons DAILY MIRROR
September 11, 2002

One year ago, the world witnessed a unique kind of broadcasting-- the mass murder of thousands--live on television. As a lesson in the pitiless cruelty of the human race, September 11 was up there with Pol Pot's mountain of skulls in Cambodia, or the skeletal bodies stacked like garbage in the Nazi concentration camps. An unspeakable act so cruel, so calculated and so utterly merciless that surely the world could agree on one thing--nobody deserves this fate. Surely there could be consensus the
victims were truly innocent, the perpetrators truly evil.

But to the world's eternal shame, 9/11 is increasingly seen as America's comeuppance. Incredibly, anti-Americanism has increased over the last year.

There has always been a simmering resentment to the USA in this
country--too loud, too rich, too full of themselves and so much happier than Europeans--but it has become an epidemic. And it seems incredible to me. More than that, it turns my stomach.

America is this country's greatest friend and our staunchest ally. We are bonded to the US by culture, language and blood. A little over half a century ago, around half a million Americans died for our freedoms, as well as their own. Have we forgotten so soon?

And exactly a year ago, thousands of ordinary men, women and children--not just Americans, but from dozens of countries, were butchered by a small group of religious fanatics. Are we so quick to betray our allies?

What touched the heart about those who died in the Twin Towers and on the planes was that we recognized them. Young fathers and mothers, somebody's son and somebody's daughter, husbands and wives, and children, some unborn. And these people brought it on themselves? And their nation is to blame for their meticulously planned slaughter?

These days you don't have to be some dust-encrusted nut job in Kabul or Karachi or Finsbury Park to see America as the Great Satan.

The anti-American alliance is made up of self-loathing liberals who blame the Americans for every ill in the Third World, and conservatives suffering from power-envy, bitter that the world's only superpower can do what it likes without having to ask permission.

The truth is that America has behaved with ENORMOUS restraint since September 11th.

Remember, remember, remember the gut-wrenching tapes of weeping men phoning their wives to say, "I love you," before they were burned alive.

Remember those people leaping to their deaths from the top of burning skyscrapers and those who knew the plane they were on was going to crash.

Remember the hundreds of firemen buried alive. Remember the smiling face of that beautiful little girl who was on one of the planes with her mum.

Remember, remember--and realize that America has never retaliated for 9/11 in anything like the way it could have.

So a few al-Qaeda tourists got locked without a trial in Camp X-ray? Oh, please pass the Kleenex.

So some Afghan wedding receptions were shot up after they merrily fired their semi-automatics in a sky full of American planes? A shame, but maybe next time they should stick to confetti.

AMERICA could have turned a large chunk of the world into a parking lot. That it didn't is a sign of strength.

American voices are already being raised against attacking Iraq-- that's what a democracy is for. How many in the Islamic world will have a minute's silence for the slaughtered innocents of 9/11? More so, how many Islamic leaders will have the guts to say that the mass murder of 9/11 was an abomination? We have never heard a statement from them. When will we
ever hear their outrage? When will we hear their stance?

When the news of 9/11 broke on the West Bank, those freedom-loving Palestinians were dancing in the street. America watched all of that--and didn't push the button. We should thank the stars that America is the most powerful nation in the world. I still find it incredible that 9/11 did not provoke all-out war. Not a "war on terrorism". A real war.

The fundamentalist dudes are talking about opening the gates of Hell if America attacks Iraq. Well, America could have opened the gates of Hell like you wouldn't believe. The US is the most militarily powerful nation that ever strode the face of the earth.

The campaign in Afghanistan may have been less than perfect and the planned war on Iraq may be misconceived. But don't blame America for not bringing peace and light to these wretched countries. How many democracies are there in the Middle East, or in the Muslim world? You can count them on the fingers of one hand--assuming you haven't had any chopped off for a
minor shoplifting offense.

I love America, yet America is hated. I guess that makes me Bush's poodle.

But I would rather be a dog in New York City than a Prince in Riyadh.

Above all, America is hated because it is what every country wants to be--rich, free, strong, open, optimistic. Not ground down by the past, or religion, or some caste system. America is the best friend the UK has ever had and we should start remembering that.

Or do you really think the USA is the root of all evil? Tell it to the
loved ones of the men and women who leaped to their death from the burning towers. Tell it to the nursing mothers whose husbands died on one of the hijacked planes, or were ripped apart in a collapsing skyscraper. And tell it to the hundreds of young widows whose husbands worked for the New York Fire Department. To our shame, George Bush gets a worse press than Saddam Hussein.

Remember, remember, remember 9/11. One of the greatest atrocities in human history was committed against America.
No, do more than remember. Never forget.

**Michelle** · 09-10-07, 05:56 PM

**trekgirl** · 09-10-07, 07:04 PM

To all of the victims of Sept 11th, you are missed.

To the LEO's...I only hope that I will be able to wear my badge with the same dignity and grace that you did. I hope that given the choice between someone else or me that I will choose to save someone else...as you did.

Rest in peace...all.