A perspective on Fort Dix -- It will take a united and vigilant citizenry
By Josie Fernandez (Col, USAF Reserves)
Washington,
May 18, 2007 -
*While I ran the 31st Fighter Wing at Homestead, a brand new Airman Basic, Josie Fernandez, worked for me. Now a Colonel in the Air Force Reserves, she penned a thought-provoking editorial. It is my honor to share it with you as my first-ever guest columnist. God bless. U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson.
A perspective on Fort Dix -- It will take a united and vigilant citizenry
A guest columnist for U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson
By Josie Fernandez (Col, USAF Reserves)
I’ve been watching with great interest the news reports about an alleged terrorist plot against U.S. soldiers in Fort. Dix, N.J. and planned in nearby Cherry Hill, a bedroom community outside Philadelphia.
The plan, the location, and the subsequent e-mail I received from a friend telling me that five of the six alleged terrorists lived near her daughter, brought the entire situation sharper into focus: the drama was unfolding barely 4 miles from the very quaint middle class neighborhood where I used to live and used to feel safe with my husband and our young children from 1993-1998.
My husband, now retired from the U.S. Air Force, was stationed at McGuire Air Force Base, located adjacent to Fort Dix. I also served in that military complex as an Air Force Reservist. We routinely put on our uniforms and drove in and out of the base and the fort while on military duty.
Even more shocking, one of the alleged plotters lived up the street from my friend’s daughter, a young mother of four whose house is festooned with yellow ribbons because her husband left two months ago on a one-year tour of duty in Baghdad.
How ironic that the soldier-husband went overseas to fight for his country and that the battlefront moved so very close to his family. That his home, the one with the big sign on the front lawn wishing for his safe return, might have become a potential decorated target!
To those who still wonder about what the U.S. military is doing strung out far and wide across the globe, let this be a warning: we are fighting over there to prevent bloodshed from happening over here.
That of course, is only part of the larger conflict. Those who want to kill Americans because of what America represents don’t see a distinction between the person in uniform who has sworn to defend the nation and the noncombatants, the innocent civilian or child who is nevertheless a target in this new kind of war.
The terrorists who want to harm us will continue to plan their evil plots and occasionally will be awfully successful.
Our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines will continue to deal with the enemy in faraway foreign lands, whose names are hard to pronounce, but where American sacrifice and courage is on display on a daily basis.
The first line of defense within our borders will continue to be the federal, state and local law enforcement officers and they will do their best to infiltrate the terrorists’ circles and stop them before their villainous plans are implemented.
But in this fight, it also will take average, ordinary people -- such as the clerk from the video store who first noticed that something evil was afoot in Cherry Hill -- to become engaged in America’s greatest struggle, our struggle for national survival.
No neighborhood stands safe from terrorism anymore. No neighborhood is insulated from possible attack, especially if in that neighborhood resides an American who wishes to live in liberty and in pursuit of happiness. Those unalienable rights espoused in our Declaration of Independence put every one of us in jeopardy.
As the initial news reports of the alleged plot started spreading across our nation, an FBI agent was quoted as saying that given the types of weapons the group was seeking to acquire, “today … we may have dodged a lot of bullets.”
Indeed, it only takes one lucky break for our enemies to accomplish their goals “to kill as many” as possible. It will take a united and vigilant citizenry to snuff that sliver of a chance from their grasp.
God Bless the United States of America!
EDITOR’S NOTE: The writer is a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve assigned to the Pentagon. Fernandez was called up to active duty after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and served at the Pentagon for one year.
The writer worked for then-Col. Sam Johnson at Homestead Air Force Base during her first assignment as a brand new Airman Basic. Johnson served as the commander of the 31st Fighter Wing at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida.
