We should have listened:

Last year, Information Systems Technician Tim Gauna, a Filipino-American sailor onboard the USS COLE told her mom, “ We’re in dangerous waters, Mom, but we’re OK. I’ll be OK. I promise you,’"

Petty Officer 3rd Class Ronchester Santiago, 22, another Filipino-American onboard from Texas, was scheduled to get out of the service in December and planned to study electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. "He was attracted to the adventure in the Navy," said his father, Rogelio Santiago, a retired Navy petty officer first class.

 Today, Sarah is still in anguish for the apparent failure in the security measures and communication of intelligence.
 
After the bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon, there are more mothers like Sara Gauna as the evils are creeping closer. We are still getting complaisant and our desire to be always politically correct is consuming us. The memories of Timothy and Rogelio are not too distant in time and the event happened in the other side of the world. Now it is ongoing inside our backyard and we must end it now and sooner we hope. 

I see the World Trade Center towers every day through our balcony in Jersey City located just across the Hudson River. The New York skyline’s highlight is certainly the palatial US landmark and reminds me of mountaintops every night. My view developed my inherent easement right to the skyline. It is more than a building - it is a generation built within our times but it is also a modern factory of human resources. People work inside and artificial people known in legal parlance as corporation lives. The presence of strong twin towers in basketball team guarantees sports dynasties. New skyscrapers are slowly being built near me hindering my free and unobstructed view about a mile away and I was about to call ‘blocking foul.’ On the morning of September 11, I was in Washington DC suburbs watching the terror in the sky on the tube almost without belief. Had I been home, I would be watching it live as the second assault took place. To call it flagrant foul is almost mute.

Skyscrapers are measured by how it can withstand avionic collisions from planes. Last week on the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” the question was “what is a crucible?” The contestant failed and the building collapsed the following morning. Rockefeller’s American Dream by went down the same way another industrial icon the Pan American Airline (PAA). Both were brought down by world terrorists. To compare these cowards to the Kamikazes pilot is absurd for the victims and targets are innocent. The Pentagon was the same way but I never thought the damage would be serious but I was wrong. The war room houses as many offices as the World Trade Center and built to withstand the weapons of WW2.

The New York skyline and the American way of life will never be same again.
 A new masked evil declared war beyond sky limit. America is finding ways to combat this assault. 
As I was driving back to Jersey City trying to sort the years behind and
 anxious to see what’s left, I look back to the cold war era when roads
 were constructed in some part to accommodate jet landing. Bridges and tunnels were specified for mobile relocations
 of missiles launchers in the event of war.
 The faces of the enemy were more defined. Friendly nations have come and go however. 
The blind fanatics will disguise this Jihad War.
 The nation of Pakistan being of the proximity is being reviewed.
 Pakistan once a very strong ally, staunch member of the 
SEATO (oriental counterpart of NATO), allowed the takeoff of the
 famous U2 over Russia that was shot down during the cold war.
 Lesser players hostile to the United States now could be counted
 as the lesser of devils. This is pragmatic in the world of politics,
 but after triumph as in the Gulf War, the end game has not been won. 
The victors must pursue the enemy to the very end. 
 
Our two sailors are the early casualties of war
 and we are still counting how many Filipino-American had perished in the latest assaults. We have more than our share. This old salty sailor would never forget printed in his Navy Liberty Card, “Eternal vigilance is the prize of liberty.”
 
Nestor Palugod Enriquez
http://www.filipinohome.com
Coming to America
https://members.tripod.com/philusnavy
Filipinos in the US Navy
 
 
Yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery.
Today is a gift,and that's why we call it the present.