Greg Mortenson

SEPTEMBER II, 2001, CHANGED THE WORLD FOREVER. OVER THE LAST THREE YEARS, A HANDFUL OF INDIVIDUALS HAVE LED THE FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM. FROM THEIR COURAGE HAVE COME OUR GREATEST VICTORIES SO FAR—ON THE BATTLEFIELD, IN THE HALLS OF POWER, AND IN HEARTS AND MINDS. JOIN US AS WE HONOR THE TRUE HEROES OF THE WAR ON TERROR.

On September 22, 2001, I had the sad privilege of speaking at the memorial service for Mark Bingham. I met Mark once briefly, but I can’t say that I knew him well. I wish I could. I very well may owe him my life. Mark perished on United Airlines flight 93 after he joined with other passengers, who were strangers to him until that moment, to take back control of the airplane from terrorists who were intent on flying it to Washington and, we have learned since, probably crashing it into the United States Capitol. I was working in the Capitol that day. All of us working there were spared, thanks to Mark and to Todd Beamer and to all the other brave souls on that plane. In what must have been an unbelievably terrifying moment, they summoned the courage and lover necessary to deny depraved and hateful men their terrible triumph.

In the Gospel of John it is written, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” The people Mark and his comrades saved that day were not their friends. They didn’t know who they were saving but they knew it would be their countrymen. That is all they knew—and all they needed to know. Such was the strength of their character, their love and humanity, that, facing the improbability of securing the flight and seeing it safely returned to earth, they sacrificed their lives in a western Pennsylvania field.

“Photo not shown” ALL THE HEROES OF 9/11 AND OF THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM (John McCain) THAT BEGAN THAT DAY, HAVE REMINDED US WHAT COURAGE REALLY LOOKS LIKE.

Two and a half years later I spoke at another memorial service, this one for Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals football player who, after processing the events of September 11, gave up the riches and other comforts of celebrity to serve his country as an army ranger. He died heroically in Afghanistan, a patriot with courage and humility whose death was all the more tragic—but no less heroic—for having been caused by friendly fire.

No American living today will forget what happened on September 11, 2001, even if most of us didn’t react to it in the same way Pat Tillman did. That day was the moment the hinge of history swung toward a new, dangerous era, not only in the affairs of this country but in the affairs of humanity. The opening chapter of this new history was tinged with sadness and uncertainty, but also with great courage and resolve.

If one could say there was good that came out of that day, it would have something to do with such courage. In our blessed and mostly peaceful society we’re not as familiar with that virtue as we once were. We ascribe courage to all manner of endeavors that really require only skill, fortitude, and a little daring—the qualities Pat Tillman showed on the football field. Till, Mark Bingham, Todd Beamer, and all the heroes of September 11, and of the war against terrorism that began that day, have reminded us what courage really looks like. The have reminded us what it is to lover our country.

This war, and our nation’s security, will not require the heroism of every citizen. Nor does our individual happiness require us all to prove ourselves heroic. But we have to be worthy of the sacrifices made on our behalf. We have to love our freedom, not just for the ease of material benefits it provides, not just for the autonomy it guarantees us, but for the goodness it makes possible. We have to love it so much that, should we be presented with the kinds of situations Mark and Todd and Pat and all other people honored in these pages were faced with, we could respond as courageously as they did.

Greg Mortenson
A MOUNTAINEER SETS POTENTIAL TERRORISTS ON A DIFFERENT PATH.

“Most of Al Qaeda’s foot soldiers are illiterate,” says Greg Mortenson, the founder of an NGO called the Central Asia Institute (CAI), which builds schools and potable water systems in the tribal borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan. “They come from impoverished areas and have no other options.” That’s why, on September 11, 2001, when Mortenson was in Pakistan’s remote Charpufan Valley commemorating a newly completed water project and he heard of the terror attacks, he didn’t flee the area; he knew that suddenly his work was more important then ever. “The mullahs don’t fear guns,” he says. “They fear the pen. They know that education will disempower the recruiting for terrorists.”

A former army medic from Montana, Mortenson first fell in love with the lawless region on a 1993 climbing trip to K2. After 78 days above 16,000 feet (having turned back just shy of the summit) Mortenson had lost 20 percent of his body mass, and on his trek back to civilization he wandered far off trail and collapsed from dehydration. He was nursed back to health by locals, and when he felt healthy enough he asked how he could repay them. A man led him to a makeshift school in a dusty field, where about 80 children were scribbling in the dirt. “It was my eureka moment,” Mortenson says.

Since that day Mortenson and his institute have built 53 schools (more than any other organization), providing the only alternative to madrassas that teach radical Islam and breed terror. Understandably, the work has not been without risk; more than 30 aid workers from various groups have been killed in the past 18 months alone. Mortenson himself has been kidnapped and ambushed several times by Kalashnikov-wielding jihadis; on the most recent occasion he escaped by diving beneath a pile of rancid goatskins in the bed of a passing truck. But it’s all worth it to him: This year the new schools will educate 24,000 children.

Funding for the CAI comes from all over: Muslim, Jewish, and Christian groups, members of the U.S. military, philanthropists, women’s groups, climbers such as Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air. They all have one thing in common: a belief that the key to eradicating terrorism is not just to kill terrorists but to prevent people from becoming terrorists in the first place. In fact, if you were to pore over the CAI’s financials you’d fine only one conspicuous omission: the U.S. government. Mortenson likes to point out that if the funds to build just one Tomahawk missile (about $840,000) were diverted to the CAI, he could build and operate 50 more schools. Fast-forward two decades and those schools would have provided nearly 100,000 kids with educations.

“This is how we are going to win hearts and minds,” says Colorado congressman Mark Udall, who has climbed in the rejoin and who has donated money to the CAI. “This is how we’re going to have to win the war against terrorism.”

© 2004 Men’s Journal