Casper remembers 9/11 attacks on Patriot Day

by Stan Lowe, Chairman (retired), Wyoming Veterans’ Commission
Tuesday, September 25, 2007 2:39 PM MDT

Americans once again observed Patriot Day on Tuesday, Sept. 11, to remember the 2,974 innocent people viciously killed in the cunningly planned terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the more than 4,000 military lost since then in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

This observance was requested in President George W. Bush’s congressionally mandated Sept. 4 proclamation that called for flying the flag at half-staff, “appropriate ceremonies, activities and remembrance services” and “a moment of silence beginning at 8:46 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time …”

The weekend before Patriot Day, more than 230 “America Supports You Freedom Walks” were held in all 50 states and 10 foreign countries, honoring those killed on 9/11 and the nation’s veterans, past and present, pursuant to another presidential proclamation designating Sept. 7n9 as National Days of Prayer and Remembrance.

Casper had no Freedom Walk, but American Legion Post No. 2, joined by the Natrona County United Veterans’ Council and Marine Corps League, conducted a splendid Patriot Day program in three parts.

The first part was a well attended public memorial service at Washington Park. The second was a supper at the Legion family post home, and the third, a flag retirement ceremony.

Col. Rita C. Meyer, Wyoming state auditor, was the principal speaker at Washington Park.

Meyer’s 23 years as an enlisted airman and officer in the Wyoming Air National Guard, plus service in the first Iraq War and in Afghanistan commanding the Security Forces and Civil Engineers at Bagram Airfield, lent substantial credibility to her message.

“I have commanded in the theater of war; my combat boots have been on the ground,” Meyer said.

Themes with which readers of this column are familiar filled her address, but she said them better.

“The United States of America has only been victorious on the battlefield when it mobilized its will, its people and its resources in support of a common goal. The War on Terror is not the military’s fight, it is America’s fight for America’s future,” she affirmed.

“We must mobilize with more energy, resources and conviction than we have ever mobilized before, and we must not give up until our work on the battlefield is finished …

“That battlefield is not just in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran. That battlefield is right here in our towns and cities and communities across America. America is in the fight of her life!”

This voice from the battlefield continued, “The terrorists’ secret weapon is not high technology. It is individual human resolve …

“We cannot and will not win the War on Terror unless we can mobilize and effectively focus the resolve of our people to fight and win. And that mobilization of effort and intent must include elected officials inside our nation’s capitol.”

Meyer then shared her firsthand knowledge of terrorists and how they think, together with the fragility of military morale.

“Careless conversation and words publicly spoken by elected officials … have the potential to energize and grow the resolve of terrorists around the world …

“I can personally attest to the destructive impact of words on the morale and safety of deployed personnel, both military and civilian …

“Words are leveraged by the speed of technology and spread, like a deadly virus, throughout the international community and across the battlefield. I weep for the threats and probable attacks that careless words and actions will most assuredly precipitate …

Meyer concluded by saying how Americans can help win this war, which must be won.

“In the long term, it will be the American people, patriots like you, united in their communities and in their resolve against terrorism that will win this global war.

Patriots understand that to do anything less will, by default, simply continue to incite the spread of terrorism.

“We must stand, community by community, united not divided against the War on Terror. We, as individual citizens and patriots, must continue to turn up the rhetoric and the action against terrorism,” she stated.

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