By Ilario Pantano

Thank you to the families, including my own.

Is this as close to victory as we are ever going to get?” I wondered aloud as I absorbed the headlines. I’ve been struggling with that question, and perhaps you have too. But I have drawn some conclusions: Today, we may all feel like SEALs, but the credit doesn’t go to our military or our politicians. It goes to the military families: the spouses, the children, and the parents who have made this long war possible.

We’ve been at war for a decade, and only 1 percent of this country has any idea of what that actually means. Neither Barack Obama nor George W. Bush has kissed his wife goodbye four, five, or six times to go into the unknown.

Last night, our friend Rachel was over for dinner with her two-year-old son Henry. My boys love to play with Henry, and when his daddy is away on a nearly year-long deployment, it’s nice for Henry’s mommy to have a few minutes of distraction. After my time in Iraq, my wife, Jill, could relate to Rachel’s struggles as a “single mom,” and we had a nice dinner talking about nothing and certainly not the family business. Henry’s dad is on his third “trip” to Afghanistan in three years, and for him, as a Marine infantry officer, the trips aren’t just long. They are dangerous.

With the news of bin Laden’s death, many friends have reached out to connect with Jill and me. “What do you think?” they ask. My friends know that like so many Americans, Jill and I were deeply impacted by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. With the air still thick with smoke and death, we almost cancelled our October wedding in lower Manhattan.

On Sept. 12, 2001, I started what would become a year-long process of reentering the Marine Corps. A part of me died on 9/11, and in the weeks that followed, I would have my first of many struggles with survivor’s guilt. Men from our neighborhood firehouse were killed, and friends from my days on Wall Street died, too.

One of the buildings where I had worked (4 World Trade Center) had been destroyed, and soon I would watch as my father’s tourism business shriveled and nearly died. Yes, it may be hard to remember, but between anthrax scares and jihadists, there was a time in 2001 when New York became a no-go for tourists.

My entire focus shifted from easygoing self-indulgence to national security. I don’t know how Jill put up with the transformation; it was never easy. I left the house on the morning of 9/11 with hair down to my shoulders as a media executive, and I returned home with a head shaved “high and tight.” She cried. We both cried. Our country had been attacked, and we were at war.

In the years that followed, Jill told me that my sense of humor died that day. I became consumed with defending the homeland as America awoke to confront a threat that had long been denied. I was inspired by the heroism and valor of men such as Johnny “Mike” Spann, a Marine–turned–CIA paramilitary officer who was killed in November of 2001. Mike was the first American killed in the War on Terror, and he left behind a wife and children.

In time, I became friends with Mike’s dad, Johnny Spann. Mr. Spann shared a tragic revelation: Mike had been part of earlier missions to kill bin Laden, but the Washington leadership (Clinton) had dithered and missed opportunities. I can’t imagine what the Spann family is feeling right now, but I know it will never bring Mike back.

The enemy brought a new kind of war to our doorstep, and just as today we all feel like Navy SEALs, ten years ago we all felt like victims. We quickly went on offense, and, like millions of Americans before us and beside us, we raised our right hands and said, “Send me.” Mike Spann was one of the first into the breach, but there would be more.

For every Pat Tillman, thousands of ordinary men and women left success and comfort for the austerity and death of the battlefield. After a year of volunteering, seeking waivers, and reapplying for a massive pay cut, Jill and I finally packed up our lives and headed off to Quantico for Officers Candidate School. Our little family didn’t know what to expect, but we knew we were headed toward the sound of the guns.

That September 12 decision and the experiences in war that followed changed our lives forever. As I reflect on the choices and the decisions that put ensuring our national security above all other callings in my life, I am left with one thought: I owe my wife big time!

Jill, my love, as I struggle to reflect on life after bin Laden, all I can find myself wanting to do is say thank you. Thank you for enduring.

For ten years, Jill has braved our family’s commitment to engage in the War on Terror, but this was never her plan. Yes, she knew I had been a Marine in the Gulf War, but those days were long behind us. As we planned our wedding in the summer of 2001, the last days of innocence, the thought of service and sacrifice was a footnote. It was history. It would become our story. In the time since 9/11, she has endured uncertainties, relocations, false alarms, and death threats.

She left her friends, her family, and her home so we could fight this fight together. She raised our son by herself while I was stationed at Quantico and we lived out of boxes. When the infantry-officer course kept me in the field for 45 out of 60 days, she made a home for us that I never saw. Even our dog stopped recognizing me.

After a year of training, I was finally assigned to my combat unit. Jill had packed up and moved our home to Camp Pendleton, Calif., only to be told that there had been a change in my orders, and the new destination was on the other side of the country at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The moving trucks arrived the day we signed a lease on our small apartment in Wilmington with a baby in her arms and a seabag in mine. Two months later, I was off to Iraq, and she was left to make friends and start a life with no family within 500 miles.

The television news offered no comfort as American bodies were hung from a bridge in Fallujah and the world went crazy. While her husband was fighting for his life, a new baby in her belly was fighting for his. It’s hard to share the frightening aspects of a pregnancy over a staticky satellite-phone call once a week. The letters home were a comfort, but the weeks of delay made it uncertain whether the sender was actually even alive. A video we shot of daddy reading a story book might be all the father that our two-year-old would ever know.

Ahh. Relief, Homecoming! The relearning and reconnecting that comes after a half-year separation begins.

The effects on her husband were not subtle. Real war — shooting and killing war — changes a man. Her husband was different. Her husband looked different, sounded different, smelled different. My chemistry had changed. My salt was saltier and my heart was heavier.

Home for two weeks, and then off to the hospital for a second baby! Mommy recovering nicely in the adjustable bed. Daddy watching the TV as Fallujah gets invaded for a second time. The joy of a son being born is tempered by brothers being killed.

All of these experiences are so common amongst the warrior class that to us, they are almost taken for granted. Ask your friends. Ask your neighbors. Their stories will be just as vivid, and so will their scars.

How many of us leave the battlefield and never stop mourning for our fallen brothers?

Every time I see my friend José, we cry thinking about his men being killed by an IED. Some friends I have learned to avoid because the emotional wreckage is too painful. One of my men, a boy really, who lost an arm in a firefight, survived Fallujah and Walter Reade only to succumb to the demons of war here at home. We spent days looking for his body, and then we buried him at Arlington. Some of my Marines have missed him so much that they tried to follow him to Arlington. Others have detoured through state and county jails as they struggled with alcohol and drugs.

When I was a deputy, we had troops in jail who had been arrested by men from their same National Guard unit. Think about that: Fighting side by side one day. Arresting your brother the next. What does that hell do to a man? To a marriage?

If it weren’t for God’s saving grace and the power of His healing, I would be lost. And I praise God for you, Jill. Your love and resilience has saved me from the dark corners of this post-9/11 odyssey.

With the achievement of this decade-old goal, I have become painfully aware of the debt of gratitude that I owe you, honey. The debt is echoed and compounded across this country. From shore to shore, in every neighborhood and every walk of life, America owes its military families. For a decade you have soldiered on and toiled, not just with spouses, parents, and children at war, but with the consequences of their broken bodies and broken hearts when they come home.

I love the gunfighters, but the true credit goes to the military families. Seven thousand coalition forces have died in combat since 9/11. Over 40,000 have had their bodies wounded, and over a million have engaged in this new form of combat that leaves deep scars of its own. Without your loving homes, tender embraces, and courageous hearts, our troops would not be up to the task.

For us, from SEALs to supply clerks, it’s the support of the families that makes it all possible. It is the families that pay the overdue bills, cook the missed meals, and dry the longing tears. Theodore Roosevelt said the credit goes to the one in the arena. I say the credit goes to the family, without which the arena would be empty.

So I say, rejoice today and give thanks to God. This small victory is a testament to American perseverance even in the face of unspeakable barbarism and psychological warfare. And this fight is far from over. Sure, we have more planes and tanks, but an enemy willing to kill its own women and children with bomb vests cannot be dismissed. And while we may have finished bin Laden, don’t ever forget how viral this movement of radical Islam has become.

I know you remember Daniel Pearl, a victim of Pakistani “tolerance,” but do you remember Nick Berg? I was fighting just outside of Fallujah in May 2004 when the little radio in our company combat operations center broke the savage news. Nick was only 26 when his head was cut off by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I watched the video again just yesterday, and you should Google it, too.

You don’t really believe it could happen, and clearly neither did Nick. He sits in his orange jumpsuit like a fat lamb. He’s surrounded by masked gunmen, and Zarqawi reads a long, rambling statement. Nick just kind of sits there, and the men behind him hardly even shift their weight as the time goes by.

Suddenly Zarqawi is done reading. The knife is in his hands before you know it. A knee rests on Nick’s back while Zarqawi straddles him and starts sawing back and forth. One hand grips Nicks scalp, wrenching the neck in order to get a clear angle on the throat. The gunmen stand around chanting “Allahu Akbar” as if they were cheering on a fraternity hazing. Nick shrieks the shrill screams of a child, and then Zarqawi shows his lifeless head to the camera.

The image of a masked terrorist triumphantly holding Nick’s head has always struck me. It became much more personal two years later, when my own head would appear superimposed on Nick Berg’s in that same image. The FBI told my family that the website containing that image “originated in Pakistan.” The FBI also called to tell us that a cell in Ohio had information on my mother, my wife, and me.

That was the inevitable outcome of a highly publicized military investigation in which I was charged with murder for killing terrorists in combat. You can thank the breathless panic whipped up by our media for that one. Later, all the charges would be dismissed, and I would be granted a fresh combat command, but I chose to resign in order to protect my family. I became a deputy sheriff in North Carolina, determined to continue keeping my family and my community safe from these monsters, but the scars would linger.

Today, my commitment to keeping America safe is stronger than ever, which is why I am running for Congress. But that choice has had consequences for my family too, and the threats have picked up again. Jill, have I thanked you enough lately for your courage? You won’t be deterred, and neither will I.

Churchill said, “It is not enough that we do our best. Sometimes we have to do what is required.” Killing bin Laden was not our “best,” but it is what the situation required. In this long war, we may never have another reason or opportunity to celebrate like this.

“But is it truly a victory?” I asked one of my brothers-in-arms, a Marine officer turned shadow warrior.

He said, “In this fight, it’s as close to victory as we are ever going to get.”

We paused to reflect on how the war had changed both of our lives. He too joined the Marines after 9/11. He’s one of America’s best and brightest and could have done anything, but he and his young family have committed themselves to fighting our nation’s enemies. He too was inspired by men like Mike Spann, and he knows there will be dark days ahead, but today, he assured me, “It’s a victory, baby. It’s a victory.”

— Ilario Pantano is the author of Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy.

Pantano’s courageous military service has been maliciously mischaracterized during this election. The Left's efforts to smear Pantano based upon erroneous and twisted information is downright unAmerican. They show more tolerance to our enemies than they have ever shown toward our own troops. There is an obvious political motivation for attacking Pantano's military record, because all the evidence screams the truth and yet they still choose to ignore it.

By Ilario Pantano, Republican Candidate for Congress, NC-07
June 17, 2010
Also published at The Daily Caller and Military.com.

“Cordoba Center” sounds comfortably Latino and almost familiar in a multi-ethnic city like New York.  The name’s Spanish origin has a little bit of history too: the Cordoba Mosque in Spain symbolized a gateway to Muslim conquest of Western Europe – a conquest that today is unfolding in real time.  But as disturbing as the sharia invasion of the European Union might be, my concern is the new $100 million mosque that will sit smugly just 600 feet from Ground Zero in New York City.

This new Cordoba Mosque will occupy a building that was literally struck by pieces of an exploding passenger aircraft deliberately piloted into the World Trade Center by martyrs shouting “Allahu Akbar.”  The suggestion that this mysteriously funded mosque is anything other than a permanent demonstration of Islam’s march on the West is naïve at best.

This Cordoba Mosque is not benign.  It is not about reconciliation or understanding.  It is about marking religious, ideological and territorial conquest. This mosque is a martyr-marker honoring the terrorists who less than a decade ago killed thousands of us just two blocks away, and it must be stopped.

I used to work in 4 World Trade Center, one of the buildings that was destroyed on 9/11.  That day, 3,000 murders and 300,000,000 nightmares marked the scorching of our national psyche.  It is almost profane to consider that the number of innocents who perished is blessedly small compared to the devious hopes of the attack’s jihadist masterminds.  Mega-mass murder on an even larger scale was interrupted by the selfless heroism of a brave few that charged into the inferno.  Targets in our nation’s capitol were saved by the bravery of “ordinary citizens” aboard a plane who that day did the extraordinary.  Thousands of lives were saved that September day by heroes whose sacrifices should never be forgotten.  But forgetting is something our society does shamefully well.

So is lying to ourselves.

Denying the true intent of this new mosque at Ground Zero is the worst kind of lie, and ignoring the symbolism of its location is a dereliction of duty.  Travel the graves at Fort Hood if you think that ignoring the truth in favor of “cultural reconciliation” doesn’t have consequences.  Failing to be honest about the Islamo-facist threats we face and who is behind them caused 12 people to die and 30 more to be wounded at Fort Hood late last year.  Major Hassan was able to commit his act of jihad on a U.S. Army base because even soldiers were afraid to do their duty.  Fear of death was eclipsed by the bureaucratic stigma of being deemed “intolerant.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reported that the pace and number of attempted terror attacks against the U.S. over the past nine months has surpassed the number of attempts during any previous one-year period.  Do you really think that this trend will slow down if we reward the bad behavior with a martyr-marker?

If we allow mosques to go up like mushrooms everywhere there is a terrorist bombing or shooting we will create a perverse incentive, not a deterrent.  This mosque at Ground Zero will serve as a big trophy and we are welcoming it?  I was deeply disappointed to learn that the local Manhattan community board and Mayor Bloomberg were complicit in this sell-out of monumental proportions.  Were they bought out wholesale by the same folks that could mysteriously produce millions in cash to buy a building and not leave a trace?  Or were they simply bullied?

Is Mayor Bloomberg afraid that his namesake building might get turned to match sticks if he offends the wrong crew?  After all, they’ll kill you for a cartoon.  Or does the threat of, say, beheading on video a la Daniel Pearl pale in comparison to the risk of being labeled “extremist” by Muslim advocacy groups or the liberal media that supports them?  I can’t pretend to get into the head of the local community board, but having faced “headless” death threats from jihadists myself, and the withering wrath of the liberal media, I know how persistent these buggers can be.

The insult of the Ground Zero mosque is compounded by the use of federal dollars to make it possible.  This is not just a “local” community board issue, nor a mayoral issue.  This is a national issue.  Reconstruction and security costs are being paid for by taxpayers from North Dakota to North Carolina.  Ground Zero is a national war memorial, and so long as federal funds go to preserve, protect, and rebuild it, a national voice should be heard.  In 2009 alone, $475 million dollars in DHS grants were spent on security for New York.  The American people have a say, and if there is no mechanism for Congress to outright stop the Cordoba Mosque, then at the very least there must be an investigation into the source of funding behind this affront so that when it is completed on September 11, 2011, the American people will know who to thank.

One thank you note can be struck early for the mosque’s front man: Kuwaiti-born Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.  Chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, Rauf is also the CEO of American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA).  But he’s more than just an apologist for the religion-based sharia law, which many experts see in direct opposition to the U.S. Constitution.  Rauf is also a key member of the Malaysia-based Perdana Global Peace Organization, reportedly the single biggest donor to the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) and its affiliated activists, which include former Weather Underground founders William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, as well as Jodie Evans, the leader of Code Pink: Women for Peace (see discoverthenetworks.org for information on this web of Leftist relationships).

You might recall the “Free Gaza” team organized the six-ship flotilla that tried to break Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.  It seems that when Imam Rauf isn’t raising money for martyr-markers in Manhattan, he is busy funding international incidents to cast aspersions on Israel.  By the way, did anyone else notice how nicely that fabricated flotilla photo-op dovetailed as a cover for Iranian nuclear activity?  James Cameron couldn’t have choreographed it better.  Am I the only one that notices that every time Iran’s nuclear weaponization is about to be a focal point of world attention, they create a crisis through their proxies by provoking Israel?  I didn’t dream the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah, did I?  Just as the world prepares to get tough with Iran, the rain of missiles begins to fall, only this time it is life preservers.

Now the world stage is focused on isolating our only democratic ally in the Middle East, and members of the Obama Administration and the Left are intent on abandoning the Israelis just as they did last year with Poland and our missile defenses in Europe.  After 5,000 rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel, can anyone say “moral parity” with a straight face?  The American Left can.  Today, the cover of the snarky Economist magazine asks, “What is wrong with America’s Right?”  But they answered their own question by reporting that “[a] gap in sympathy for Israel has widened between Democrats and Republicans.  Conservatives still tend to back Israel through Hell and high seas.”  Well that’s one gap I am proud to stand on the right side of.

The other gap I am proud to stand on the right side of is Iran’s credibility gap.  As the UN prepares its fourth set of ineffective sanctions in as many years, Iran has once again managed to sidestep the yoke of culpability, and will continue developing nuclear weapons undeterred.  Speaking of flotillas, the Iranians run a shipping scheme which bamboozles investigators with its shell game approach to false registration, renaming and outright scoffing of Western efforts to track cargoes, and yet we are told that we are supposed to trust them?  Given that we have no clue on the workings of over 50% of Iran’s fleet, according to the New York Times, is it any wonder that Israel wants to stop and search boats?  We should be doing some searching of our own: searching for the truth about who is behind the Cordoba Mosque and what their agenda is, and searching for the courage to stop them.

Sunday at 4PM, Moe Lane interviewed Ilario Pantano, a former USMC officer currently running for Congress in North Carolina’s seventh district (see Meet Ilario Pantano R, NC-07).  At the end of that interview, Pantano dropped a bomb on a presently controversial topic:  ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’.  He exposed an incriminating money trail of radical Leftist groups underwriting the DADT repeal campaign! This was far more than a grunt opining on military-political policy; Pantano flat out accused Congressman Patrick Murphy of selling his military oath and national security for huge infusions of cash from transgender, gay and lesbian special interest groups.

Pantano already had an op-ed on the topic prepared and it was released at midnight on the Daily Caller and on Pantano’s campaign website.  It’s a great follow up to Moe’s interview, as it fleshes out more of the details.  Pantano names names and amounts!  The entire article is posted here – with permission – as an addendum to Moe’s interview:

Don’t ask how much it costs to repeal ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’

After Jack Murtha, another Pennsylvania All-Star, made an art form out of shoving our troops under the bus for his own career, I never thought I’d live to see what Congressman Patrick Murphy has just done:  a neatly bundled vote wrapped in the flag with a camouflage bow on top. And a price tag.

From the four-star Commandant of the Marine Corps on down to squad leaders, real fighting men everywhere are screaming at the tops of their lungs that repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) now is a mistake.  Even proponents like Secretary Gates have urged caution and delay, but Pelosi and her government-hijacking pirates found the perfect pocket patriot to lead their charge into this Memorial Day weekend.

While our nation mourns its soldiers and those of us who have survived are left to console the grieving families of our brothers, I am seeing red at what I believe is Murphy’s violation of a sacred trust. He spearheaded legislation to further a liberal agenda that is funding his campaign, at the expense of our military readiness. In uniform and in the Congress, you swear an oath to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic. Where in that oath is the price ‘negotiable’?

How dare I impugn the motivation of a congressman that conveniently serves as the “GI-issue” battering ram of the majority party? Save your outrage for just a second. It took this dumb grunt about three hours (a journalism intern could have done it in half that) scanning FEC filings to learn all that I need to know about Patrick Murphy: his congressional seat was bought and paid for by MoveOn.org to the tune of $90,000. You know, the group that brought you such patriotic hits as “General Betray-us.” Still outraged?

Okay, so radical groups that have actively worked to weaken America helped launch Murphy’s career, so what? That’s so 2006 and what does that have to do with DADT? What if you learned that an influential lobbying group with a steel and glass office tower in DC had spent over ten million dollars to influence Democrats from Obama to Pelosi on down to Mr. Murphy? What if those same liberal special interests had invested more money in Murphy’s candidacy than almost any other congressional candidate this cycle? Would you think it was a coincidence?

No one asked that question during Murphy’s recent press conference with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) on the steps of the capitol. No one asked him how much transgender, gay and lesbian special interest PAC money bought his vote. No one asked how much it cost to trade on his 82nd Airborne Division lapel pin and throw his brothers under the bus. Was it twenty thousand dollars? But this is about fairness, right? Was it thirty thousand dollars? But this is good for the troops, right? Nope, and its more like $40,000 of easily searchable contributions. You can only guess what the real figure is, but I’ll tell you who is really going to pay for it: our troops and more importantly, the mission.

You see all of this money-buys-influence business makes it hard for me to have a legitimate debate with the guy on the policy aspects of DADT repeal, but don’t take it from me. After all I’m an easily dismissed “Jack Bauer Republican” according to the Daily Kos.

Ask Medal of Honor winning gunfighters that have had to kill people for a living what they think of this nonsense, not armchair quarterbacks in air-conditioned Quonset huts sipping diet Cokes and i-chatting on Skype.  Real grunts, like Major General Livingston, USMC (retired), will tell you what the active guys can’t say: this repeal of DADT is a bunch of PC BS.

Forgive the acronyms, I’m just a simple Marine grunt that has fought in a couple of wars.  I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I sure don’t like it when my national security is traded away to build liberal campaign slush funds. Oh, and there is the rub: Murphy is packaged and sold as a Blue Dog. In fact, he’s one of the top three Blue Dog fundraisers and a top tier recipient of the Blue Dog PAC’s money. Even Murphy’s PAC, “Take the Hill” (must be JAG office-humor-code), is a max recipient of Blue Dog PAC money.

But aren’t these guys supposed to be conservative? Isn’t that what they tell people? That they are just Democrats in Name Only (DINOs) but underneath are really closet Republicans? Well, it looks like the Blue Dogs have turned into well-fed lap dogs now that they have let Pelosi’s wolves into the hen house.

It’s time to put these dogs out.

Ilario Pantano enlisted in the Marine Infantry at 17 and fought in the Gulf War. After witnessing the attacks of 9/11, Pantano returned to the Marines and fought in Falluja as an Infantry officer. He is currently the GOP nominee for the US Congress in North Carolina’s 7th District.

www.PantanoForCongress.com