Samuel Lewis

Through 20 years of military service and two conflicts, all of the things that I wanted for myself came true. But I learned some valuable lessons along the way. I learned that none of my self-centered motivations meant anything because leading Soldiers is the most selfless duties a person can have. I also learned that the best leaders are the ones who are preparing to lead, not the ones who are waiting to lead. The final lesson that I learned is that being the team captain and leading at school is real-world leadership.

Thank you, for coming out to remember the 55 active-duty military service members, 423 brave first responders, and the great-many civilians who died as a result of the 11 September 2001 cowardly-terrorist-attacks on our homeland.  Comprising those brave first responders were 71 law enforcement officers; 8 hospital paramedics; and 343 male and female municipal firefighters …  What does their sacrifice mean?

It was our first mission in Iraq and my last assignment in the Army, I was the senior enlisted person in charge of a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) search and destroy team. Our mission was to respond to intelligence reports of possible WMD, gather evidence and take samples, then blow up everything we left behind. Before deployment, we trained for every foreseeable mission; we had the best communications and heavy armored vehicle systems in the military; my Soldiers and I spent countless hours rehearsing tactics and practicing with our weapons. Before deployment we fired about 1 million bullets downrange. On our 5th day in Iraq — mission day 1 — we got the call; someone found something dangerous, and we needed to assess the situation. We didn’t have time to plan and only 2 Soldiers could go. I had to deploy 2 of my 11 Soldiers to the security gate to be picked up by a squad they never worked with, who were taking them to the target site in the middle of Baghdad … we trained for every