This afternoon, while engaging in my investigation of my new neighborhood, I took the opportunity to pick up a copy of the Clackamas Review, the free local newspaper for Clackamas County. What first drew my attention was the front page article describing the re-opening of the historic Arch Bridge between Oregon City (the county seat of Clackamas County) and West Linn, a story that combined my interests in structural engineering and history. However, there was an unexpected front page story that struck my interest and was worthy of comment. Oregon City High School had an assembly recently to honor the heroism of a man named Tyrone Woods, Sr. This name might not be familiar to most readers of this blog, or most people even in Clackamas County, but his name and the nature of his death are immensely significant.

Tyrone Woods, Senior, died at the age of 41, and was an alumnus of Oregon City High School here in the Portland area. He died in Benghazi, Libya, as one of the two retired Navy SEAL officers who gave their lives seeking to protect the US Consulate in Benghazi from a terrorist attack. His actions, while leading to his own death, managed to save the lives of 30 embassy staff when he left his own secure annex and escorted these employees to a “safe house” where they were evacuated after the initial attack on the US Consulate, before perishing with three other Americans (including the US Ambassador to Libya) in the second attack on the consulate by terrorists. His heroism was praised by his former bosses, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (who described Woods as having “the hands of a healer as well as the arm of a warrior”) and President Obama (who described him as “the quiet, consummate professional”) even as his death stands as a mute but eloquent protest against their own words and actions.

The article goes on to describe Woods’ semi-nomadic childhood between a few different communities in the Pacific Northwest, his childhood interest in hunting, as well as his skill in diving and wrestling from childhood. After 20 years of loyal service to the military, he retired in 2009 as a decorated veteran of such campaigns as Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan (one of his awards was the Bronze Star) as well as a noted automobile enthusiast in an area that is full of them, and a devoted friend and family man. The teenagers of Oregon City High School have now heard of his devotion to public service, and they (and their relatives and friends and neighbors) might ponder what put such a hero in harm’s way in the first place.

After all, it was not as if no one warned that the situation in Libya was problematic and that it was by no means a certainty that Libya was better off in anarchy than it was in tyranny [1] [2]. Tyrone Woods was a brave soldier who was put into harm’s way because of the political mistakes of his bosses, who pursued a policy of leading from behind and blindly supporting rebellions without paying enough attention to dealing with the inevitable instability that results from overthrowing longtime dictators, or protecting Americans from harm’s way from opportunistic terrorists who take advantage of anarchy to pursue their own violent and evil goals, as has been seen in places like Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Mali, Lebanon, and Syria as well as Libya (and other nations) in the last few years. Recognizing the dangers, the embassy staff in Libya sought increased protection, which was denied in a blind trust in hope and change in Libya providing enough protection for the American embassy staff there. This blind trust was clearly misplaced.

And that is bad enough. Worse is the cover up. There have been denials that the US Embassy staff in fact asked for greater protection, to throw the dead under the bus and claim that they were insensible of the danger they were in. There have been false accusations that Republicans are to blame for the lapse in security for supposedly cutting the budget for embassy protection [3], as well as frequently repeated false accusations that a poorly made You Tube film was responsible for a nonexistent protest in the first place to deflect the role of Al Qaeda in the organized attack that shows how Obama’s administration has made the world less safe for Americans. Even supposedly impartial media figures have shown their bias and their error in defending these lies, and then having to walk them back after the fact in a public that has grown deeply skeptical of the media, regardless of their political affiliation [4]. And that skepticism is rampant even without examining the fundraising links between President Obama’s close family and proponents of the imposition of Sharia law [5].

What does this mean? Clackamas county residents, at least those who are now informed of the local connection of a patriotic Oregonian, now have a chance to reflect on the difference between a heroic soldier who sacrificed his life to save his fellow citizens and the unworthy administration he served, one that put him (and others) in harm’s way and and then has done everything possible to lie about it and cover it up, all in the midst of one of the nastiest political campaigns in American history. On the one hand we have loyal public service from an exemplary citizen and soldier, and on the other we have gross incompetence in protecting American interests and American citizens and the inability to accept responsibility for those failures. The contrast between those two is open for all to see, and decide accordingly.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/libya-ira-and-the-perils-of-partition/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/mixed-nuts-a-musing-on-uprising-in-libya/

[3] http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/11/libya-security-lapse-the-budget-for-embassy-security-is-not-responsible/

[4] http://spectator.org/archives/2012/10/18/the-candy-crowley-tipping-poin/4

[5] http://spectator.org/archives/2012/10/16/obamas-family-funding-sharia