Jerry Bullock
This has been a week of both sadness and of pride for San Marcos. Capt Paul W. Peña returned home to the salute of so many who, even as they grieved, paid homage to a man who gave his life for freedom. Again the tragedy of war has struck our community. Kabul and Baghdad do not seem so far away anymore. The Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen are no longer shadows on our television screens, they are living human beings playing an important role in bringing freedom to a people who for so many years lived under the most terrible oppression.
Capt. Peña died at the hands of terrorists. The wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq are not against a nation or an army mobilized to defend the country. They are wars against terror and against insurgents using the terrorists weapons. The weapons of cowards, not of soldiers.
The casually placed IED will kill and destroy indiscriminately. The terror from an explosive device is not so much in death but is the widespread rending of the innocent bodies, men, women and children who happen to be in range. The dead are blessed by comparison with a child with no arms or legs, a woman badly burned by the explosion or a person looking down at the stub where there had been a foot. Meantime, the cowardly attackers celebrate their great victory.
Just nine years ago our country was attacked by a foreign power. Three huge bombs, fuel-laden commercial aircraft, highjacked and full of passengers destroyed the business heart of America and more than 3,000 lives.
More Americans died on Sept. 11, 2001, than died at Pearl Harbor and Hickam Air Bases on Dec. 7, 1941. This was an act of war, not a robbery of a grocery store to be treated like a crime and send the FBI to investigate. Instead of taking those responsible for the loss and treating them as prisoners of war, we try them in a civilian court and according to this morning's news there is already a plea bargain in the work. Teddy Roosevelt had a different solution; he sent in the Marines.
All around the world we are being attacked. The Marine barracks in Lebanon; the SS Mayaguez, taken in international waters; the USS Cole, damaged with fatalities in a “friendly port.” Add to these the Airmen who died in the collapse of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the picture of the war in which we are involved cries out against prosecuting it in the free courts of a free people, the very establishments the terrorists would see destroyed.
I am proud of San Marcos and I am proud of the young men and women holding the line against terrorism and oppression. We forget so quickly. I think it would be well if every American would go back and watch the television coverage of that terrible September day. Watch once more as giant jetliners gracefully curved into the Trade Center Towers. Watch as the rescue services trying to save lives lost theirs. Watch the living people falling from the upper stories of the crumbling building. Relive that day lest we forget.
We pray God's comfort and blessing to Capt Peña's family. He is our hero and joins the leagues of Texans who have made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.
Jerry Bullock has written his weekly column for the Daily Record for more than 20 years.
