EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS COMMENTARY FROM REPRESENTATIVE JEFFERSON BURTON IS PART OF UTAH POLITICAL UNDERGROUND’S OPINION SERIES REFLECTING ON 9/11’s 20th ANNIVERSARY.

September 11, 2001, is a day that most Americans remember with startling clarity. I had just returned from the Pentagon in Washington D.C. to attend an important meeting at the University of Utah. As I was driving back to the National Guard Headquarters in Draper on Interstate 15, I heard the news that an aircraft had struck one of the twin towers at the World Trade Center in Manhattan. By the time I made it back to my office I viewed the impact of the second tower on the television. 

As someone who had spent my entire adult life training for conventional combat, I recall feeling vulnerable and unprepared for an attack of this magnitude on my homeland. Feelings of shock and disorientation, and then anger welled up in me, as the reports of destruction and the loss of almost 3,000 Americans unfolded. My facade of invulnerability, and indeed my view of the world had been changed in the blink of an eye. Within days we began preparing for a military response to the attacks, and within a few months we began deployments of our first Special Operations and Engineer Soldiers into Afghanistan. 

On February 3, 2003, my deployment orders came. I was ordered to lead a Battalion of 650 Combat Engineers, or Sappers in the initial ground war in Iraq. It would be our job to clear minefields and obstacles so that Armor and Infantry forces could maneuver and defeat conventional Iraqi military units on a linear battlefield. That’s the war we had planned for, but that was not the war we experienced. 

After the initial “Battle of Baghdad,” we began facing irregular, or guerrilla type attacks to include extensive use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), suicide bombers, snipers, and ambushes. The battlefield became unconventional and asymmetrical almost overnight.  We faced and eliminated unconventional enemies’ eyeball to eyeball, and we also began the dangerous task of finding and neutralizing IEDs without any armor protection. The incredible bravery and selflessness of the American Soldier become an everyday occurrence.  We also had the task of responding to every suicide bombing in the Baghdad Metro Area to conduct rescue and recovery operations. That was a gut-wrenching task that always left us mourning the wanton destruction, and the terrible loss of innocent life. It was the death of the children that impacted us the most.

As I reflect on 9/11 today, twenty years later, I am reminded of the incredible unity we felt as Americans, albeit for a short time. We were united despite party, or politics to work together, and to ensure that something like that would never again happen in our homeland. I am reminded of “Americas Best,” those Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who rose and answered the call to defend everything that was sacred to them. 

I am reminded of dear friends lost in this struggle that has ground on for more than twenty years. In 2003, I began a practice that has continued even to this day. Inside my hat, I carry the names of my Soldiers, and friends who were Killed in combat. Upon my retirement from active military service in November 2019 there were 18 names in that hat including the name of my best friend who was killed in an ambush on October 16, 2003. The names of those who were maimed, and lost limbs are also recorded there. These were real living and breathing human beings, who gave everything they had to give. They gave up their tomorrows so that we could live in safety today. I think of them often as I go about my daily routine. I remember the good times and the bad, but mostly they remind me that we should live every day with passion. 

We should love more and hate less. We should seek solutions to our common problems with logic and with compassion. And we should prepare our minds and our bodies for the challenges that lie ahead. We should serve one another without seeking personal gain. After nearly 38 years in the Armed Forces, I was elected to serve in the State Legislature. In a way, I guess I have chosen public service as a way of commemorating their service. To make their deaths matter. May we always remember their unselfish sacrifice. I am reminded of the words of a great man who said: “The world will know peace, only when selfish strivings are replaced by selfless service.”