Airman's burial stirs emotions

Published 8:43 pm Monday, December 5, 2005

Monday marked the six-month anniversary of what many Americans believe is the defining event of our time — the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. But before any commemorations could begin, more American deaths in early March punctuated the seriousness of the occasion. Among the eight U.S. soldiers killed in action against al-Quaida fighters in Eastern Afghanistan was Senior Airman Jason Cunningham of Moody Air Force Base.

After Sept. 11, it wasn’t easy to read story after story about victims of the attacks. Each image, each new piece of information on the lives cut short tugged at us, tapped into our common humanity.

The death of pararescueman Cunningham reopened wounds that barely had time to heal. Friends remember the 26-year-old as a man dedicated to his country, his job and his comrades in the field. We see the photos of the senior airman’s wife and two children and know that, even as we grieve, we cannot begin to understand what they’re experiencing.

The U.S. government interred Cunningham’s body at Arlington National Cemetery Thursday, three days after the six-month anniversary of Sept. 11. As we stop to honor the young serviceman’s memory, we should also remember the cause for which he died.

The terrorists we fight hijack civilian jets and crash them into civilian targets. They murder journalists, as Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl’s widow could tell us. And the people who have targeted the United States and its citizenry do not take prisoners, as the widow of Navy SEAL Neil Roberts might tell us.

As we remember Sept. 11, its victims and its heroes, let us never forget that American’s war on terrorism is a just one.