And so it began...

I wonder how many Americans know that the first real battle against terrorists backed by Osama Bin Laden was Operation Gothic Serpent October 3-4, 1993? You see we have been fighting this war against Islam ( no I won't say extremists or radicals) for a bit longer than most people probably realize.

The Rangers of 3/75 and the men of Delta Force paid a heavy price then and continue to do so now. A historical part of our units lineage, we will never forget.

"Whoever does not have the stomach for this fight, let him depart. Give him money to speed his departure since we wish not to die in that man’s company. Whoever lives past today and comes home safely will rouse himself every year on this day, show his neighbors his scars, and tell embellished stories of all their great feats of battle. These stories he will teach to his son, and from this day until the end of the world, we shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for whoever has shed his blood with me shall be my brother. And those men afraid to go, will think themselves as lesser men as they hear of how we fought and died together…."

Gone but Never Forgotten.

Our Loss

They came when they were called,They asked for little and received less.
They fought for honor and truth,In a world in which there was precious little.
We have been made better for their sacrificeAnd yet we are poorer by their passing.

Ultimately in spite of their lost lives,We must recognize that the greatest loss lies with us;

For we have been stripped of their lives and their gifts.
Of all the children they will never father,
of the students they will never tutor,
of the truth they will never uncover,
of the dreams they had that no mortal will ever know,
of the best of humanity that they can never again be.

We cannot remember them as well as we should,We will never remember them as well as we do now.
Alas, we barely knew them at all.
But they died in our stead,
And if there is one thing we should know, one thing we must take from this desolate moment; it is that they could have been us, and they must be us.

We must live for them.
We must try to achieve the promise that was embodied in their lives, before they were so nobly cast aside for our sake.

This is the only way we can shoulder this otherwise unbearable debt.

By their selfless sacrifice they have shown that this is how they would have had it,
had they by some accident of fate been left as the living and not we.

- Bruce Irvine