Sept. 11 still on the minds of soldiers deploying to Iraq

“There’s no place in the world for terrorists, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in New York City, not in Washington, D.C.”
Capt. Jennifer Bowersox, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas

FORT IRWIN — Sgt. Desion Fulks watched the World Trade Center towers come down on television from Fort Rucker, Ala. He re-enlisted three weeks later.

Capt. Joseph Mason, a reservist at the time, immediately volunteered for combat duty after watching what happened in New York and Washington, D.C. He deployed to Iraq two years later with the first wave a troops.

“I was sitting at home, looking at the television, seeing the carnage of the Pentagon and the Trade towers, and I felt I had to do something,” he said.

Both men, and about 5,000 other soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas begin training at Fort Irwin on Thursday, the seven-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and one other commercial jet. Many of the soldiers, who will deploy to Iraq at the end of December, said the images of Sept. 11, 2001 still flash through their minds.

“I will never forget what happened on 9/11,” said Sgt. 1st Class Mark Linares. “It’s been so long since 9/11, but it is still in my mind like it was yesterday.”

Linares, who was with the 82nd Airborne Division when the attacks occurred and knew he would be one of the first soldiers on the ground where ever they had to go. Some soldiers in the 82nd Airborne were in Afghanistan the next month. Capt. Jennifer Bowersox was part of a unit that went to Kuwait when the ground war in Iraq began in 2003. She said then soldiers talked about Sept. 11 as their reason, and they still talk about it today.

“It must be on every soldier’s mind. It’s certainly on mine,” she said. “You’re wearing the American flag on your sleeve. You’re thinking this happened in my nation, and we can never allow it to happen in the United States again.”

When the soldiers deploy to Iraq in December, they will see different conditions than the soldiers who first went to Iraq. Spc. Shantel Davis said the brigade’s mission this tour is to provide security for the Iraqis as they struggle to take control of their country.

Fulks, who said he has young nieces and nephews who want to enlist, said he wants to go to finish the job in Iraq so his family does not have to. Mason said the passion he felt when he first volunteered right after Sept. 11 is still there. And as the war lengthens, it grows.

“I also focus on the lives and the sacrifices of our fellow soldiers and people that I have known, fought with and bled with in combat,” he said.

To mark the anniversary of Sept. 11, Barstow Community College will hold a remembrance ceremony at 9 a.m. on campus. Fort Irwin will hold a remembrance at 8:30 a.m. at the headquarters building.

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4121 or aaron_aupperlee@link.freedom.com