Michael was finishing his sophomore year of high school when Shirley began to have some health problems. The hospital ran every test possible on Shirley and when they finally received the pathology report, they got the dreaded news that no one wanted to hear. Shirley had stage 1V breast cancer. She continued to go downhill until the sixty third day after she was realeased from the hospital she passed away peacefully at home. Doug and Michael were at her bedside, holding her hands as she passed. Once she was gone, they just sat for a long time with each other, not saying a word. Their minds drifted back to all the good memories they had with her. Both of them couldn’t help but now feel empty and alone without her.
Doug and Michael spent a lot of time with each other after Shirley’s death. One night, while at dinner table, Michael decided to have a heart to heart talk with Doug about his plans for the military. He gave Doug the dreaded news that he didn’t want to hear. Michael turned to Doug and his face had a slight frown on it as he said, “You know, Grandpa, I still want to join the Army as soon as I get out of high school.” Doug said, “You know you have plenty of money to go to any college you want, don’t you?” Michael shrugged his shoulders and said, “Yea, I know Grandpa, but that’s not what I want to do.” Doug wasn’t very happy about Michael’s decision, but told him if that was what he really wanted he would stand behind him and support him.
Michael told him he was going to join the Army for six years and become a Special Forces soldier. He said that after he was done with his time in the service he would come home and go to college. He hadn’t decided on a career yet and thought the time in the service would help him make up his mind. Doug knew down deep inside that he couldn’t control the fate of his grandson but he couldn’t stand the thought of losing him in some foreign country like Iraq or Afghanistan. He had an idea of what Michael may be facing because of what he faced in Vietnam and just the thought of it drove him crazy.
A few days later Michael went to the local Army recruiter’s office and signed up to join the Army Special Forces. After a few weeks, he received the information from the Recruiter that he had passed the written tests and that they would soon be sending him to boot camp.
The time passed quickly and soon Doug was dropping Michael off at the airport to head to his new duty station. As he was driving back home, he had huge tears in his eyes and they were dripping down his face. He had to pull over on the side of the road so he could wipe the tears away and compose himself. He couldn’t remember ever feeling as lonely as he was feeling at that moment. He was thinking that the big house was not the family home anymore. The loneliness brought back all the memories of Shirley, Jenifer, and Michael and happier times. For the first time, since being in Vietnam, he was truly alone. He kept wondering, where had all the time gone? What had happened to his family?
Later that evening Michael had made it to Fort Benning without any problems and Doug was glad and relieved to hear from him. They both knew it was going to be hard for Michael to contact him because of the strenuous training he was going to be going through. Doug knew he had to do something with his time or he would go crazy. His first thought was that he would get more involved with his local church but he thought that wasn’t really what he wanted to do. He had talked with his pastor years before about his time in Vietnam and the people he had killed in Vietnam. He and the pastor believed that God had forgiven him for those killings since it was done in a time of war and he was just following the orders of his commanders.
Doug had plenty of time on his hands and could do everything right on his computer so he took a course from Rosetta Stone of the Arabic and Farsi language. He worked hard on his goals every day of mastering the two languages. When he would become bored he would take out the Qur’an and read from it to learn more about the Muslim religion. The Muslim religion is called Islam and it is articulated by the text of the Qur’an, (Islam holy book). It is the basis for the Muslim religion. They believe that there is only one God, (Allah), they believe in Angels, prophets, the Holly book (Qur’an), a judgment day, and pre-destination. Doug thought that the Islamic religion had some parallels to the Christian religion which he had practiced his entire life. As a Christian he believed that Jesus is the son of God, he believed in Angels, he believed the Bible and that there is a judgment day. Even though the religions are similar there were still some major differences. He felt that every person should believe in something and he didn’t condemn people for believing in whatever religion they chose, as long as they didn’t try to force their beliefs on him.
Doug felt that it wasn’t the ordinary Muslim person that the United States was fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was the radical Muslim terrorists, the Jihadist extremist organizations that believe people who don’t believe the same faith as them are Infidels. He believed they were the ones that distorted the intent of the Qur’an. The goal of these radical terrorists is to kill all the Infidels. They have inspired a worldwide campaign of violence by their self-proclaimed radical jihadist groups and organizations. The United States originally went into Afghanistan to fight the al-Qaeda organization and to destroy their training camps. This is where the terrorist that attacked America were trained by the al-Qaeda in known terrorist camps throughout Afghanistan. It is also where Osama bin Laden took refuge during United States counter-attacks on Afghanistan.
The more Doug learned about the radical terrorist organizations the more complicated he thought they were to figure out. They weren’t just one easy to defeat organization; there were many radical terrorist organizations. They had tons of money behind them so they were able to purchase the best weapons available to carry out their acts of terror. They had people at their head, like Osama bin Laden, that that been planning and carrying out terrorist attacks all over the world for years.
It is believed that there are thousands of “homegrown” (American born) and foreign men and women being trained on American soil and the number is growing all the time. They are trained in explosives, kidnapping, murder, firing weapons and guerilla warfare. They are told to try and appear friendly or neutral but this can change the moment the order is given to kill the enemy. They have close ties to a violent Muslim radical group that seeks to purify Islam through violence. Their belief is that “All Jews and Christians must be killed.” They have known ties to al Qaeda and the Taliban. (16)
According to what he read on the internet before September 11, 2001, Muslims had been heard shouting statements from some of their local meetings saying things, like, “Kill the Jews, and destroy the West.” There were books, pamphlets and promotional material being passed out at their conventions and in some of their mosques calling for the “extermination of the Jews and Christians.” When they are questioned about some of their activities and things they are saying in their mosques and other gathering places in America they just say, “It is our civil right to say what we want in America.” (17) Doug believed in his heart the American people and the American government would not allow this to continue, especially since our soldiers were still dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most disturbing thing for Doug was that the very same Muslim terrorist organizations that Michael was training to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan were carrying out there terrorist activities and plans from right here on American soil.
Doug read material from American Journalist, Steven Emerson, the founder and Executive Director of Investigative Project on Terrorism for the United States. He and his staff have provided briefings to the United States Government and law enforcement agencies, members of Congress and Congressional Committees regarding the terrorist organizations. He has spent a long time trying to convince America that the threat of terrorism in America is real. He gained attention with his 1994 P.B.S. documentary, “Jihad in America.” In his documentary he stated that the Islamic militants found the United States was the best place to raise funds, disseminate propaganda and build up their political organizations because of our freedoms
we live by. There are over thirty five suspected Jihad terrorist compounds or training camps in twenty two states of the United States. They are sometimes called “sleeper cells.” (4) Doug thought how can they be living in America right next door to us and wanting to kill us all at the same time? How could our own government allow this to happen?
Reading Emerson’s material and tons of other material on the internet that was available gave Doug a huge insight into the hearts and minds of the radical terrorist groups. He became even more determined to learn their language and find out everything he could about them. He figured by the time Michael was through with all his training he would have a real good idea of where the radical Muslim terrorist organizations in America were located. He now had a new goal in life and it had actually given him direction and purpose once again. It helped the time go by quicker and he wasn’t as lonely as he had been when Michael first left for the Army.
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Chapter 6 - Michael’s in the Army
The American Terrorist Page 5
