Death Comes Calling For the Class of 9/11

By Nathan Thornburgh

The question everyone seems to be asking is, Why Emily? U.S. Army 2nd Lieut. Emily Perez, 23, was buried last week at West Point, on a high bluff over the Hudson River, alongside two centuries of fallen graduates from the U.S. Military Academy. Hers was the first combat death in the 2005 graduating class--called the class of 9/11 because they arrived on campus just two weeks before the terrorist attacks. She was also the first female West Point graduate to be killed in Iraq.

She died an ordinary death, at least by today's standards in Iraq: a roadside bomb exploded as she led her platoon in a convoy south of Baghdad on Sept. 12. But what makes this death so difficult to understand even against Iraq's constant churn of violence is just how extraordinary this particular soldier was.

Even at a school of overachievers, Perez stood out. She held the second highest rank in her senior class and as brigade command sergeant major was the highest-ranking minority woman in the history of West Point. She set school records as a sprinter on the track team, led the school's gospel choir, tutored a number of other students and even helped start a dance squad to cheer on the football and basketball teams. Professors wanted her to be in their classes; soldiers wanted her to lead their cadets; underclassmen wanted to absorb a little bit of the drive that made Perez push herself and still manage to serve others, from starting an AIDS ministry at her hometown church as a teenager to donating bone marrow to a stranger just before she headed to Iraq.

Yolanda Ramirez-Raphael, her roommate at West Point, says that Perez's accomplishments in her short life stemmed from an unwavering self-confidence. "She didn't worry about somebody liking her or not," says Ramirez-Raphael. At male-dominated West Point, she says, "women will sometimes try to change their leadership style, but not Emily. She always got right to the point."

IEDs have killed nearly 1,000 American soldiers in Iraq, and they continue to be the deadliest threat to U.S. troops despite a multibillion-dollar campaign to neutralize them. More than any other element in Iraq, roadside bombs have spread the dangers of war evenly from frontline soldiers to support personnel. Perez, who was a Medical Service Corps officer, had survived several convoy attacks before the one that killed her, according to Ramirez-Raphael. After one of those, a mutual friend from West Point happened to be in the quick-reaction force that arrived on the scene. "He told me that Emily held her own [in securing the location]," says Ramirez-Raphael. Perez, she says, had always known how to fight.

I spent a month at West Point reporting for our May 2005 cover story on Perez's fellow cadets in the class of 9/11. I didn't know Perez personally, but classmates I met all had a common trait: the ability to safeguard their sense of duty from their personal doubts or insecurities about the mission. In the classroom, I watched cadets debate the successes and failures of the current U.S. occupation strategy. They learned about the dangers of this particular war from watching videos of an IED explosion and discussing the fate of West Point graduate General Eric Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff who was ostracized for contradicting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's estimates of how many troops would be needed in Iraq. But outside the classroom, the cadets still mustered on the plain and marched in unison, a physical reminder of their willingness to accept and execute whatever mission they were given.

On one of my last days at West Point, I watched from the stands as the class of 9/11 took the art of parading to its farcical zenith. A high wind had blown a tall plumed hat off one of the lead cadets, forcing the hundreds who followed in box formation to try to step over it without glancing down or altering their parade stride. As you might imagine, that did not work out very well. Cadet after cadet ended up stumbling over a hat that could have easily been picked up and tossed out of the way.

Even the West Point parents in attendance couldn't help laughing a bit at these proud ranks being hobbled by a lone hat. But as I watched, I finally figured it out: these things that West Pointers do--parading in unyielding formation, shining already gleaming boots, enlisting to sacrifice their lives on some unknown and unloved territory far from home--are done not out of foolishness but out of faith. They have faith that American values and resourcefulness do not lend themselves to meaningless death.

What do we owe them in return? An honest debate and some tough questions that soldiers by definition cannot outwardly ask or answer. We should be asking straight questions: Do we have enough troops? Is the war winnable? Should we redeploy to safer bases, or should we be a more muscular presence on the streets of Iraq? "Emily was just a problem solver," one of her West Point friends told me. Iraq may have defied solution so far, but we owe her a continued, honest effort. For a longer version, go to time.com where this was the most popular story of the week