'We cannot fail' — Northern Command now ready for domestic defense

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. — The only military command focused solely on defending U.S. soil was declared fully operational Thursday, two years after the terrorist attack that led to its formation.

Enlarged news photographs from Sept. 11, 2001, hang on the walls at U.S. Northern Command headquarters — reminders to people like Army Lt. Col. Shelly Stellwagen.

"Having lost eight friends at the Pentagon, this is a grudge match, and we're going to win," she said.

Over the past year, officials at this Air Force base near Colorado Springs have been tweaking Northcom's structure and operations in tackling its twin missions of defending the country and supporting civil authorities.

Even before it was declared fully operational, Northern Command commander Gen. Ralph "Ed" Eberhart and his team helped with natural disasters, the Columbia shuttle disaster and the Washington, D.C.-area sniper shootings.

On Thursday, command troops monitored soldiers sent to fight fires in Montana, prepared for the potential landfall of Hurricane Isabel and watched for potential threats on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"This is the first time in a long time a command was stood up from nothing," said Marine Corps Col. Gene Pino, the command's director of training and exercises. "Northern Command is the true evolution of a new entity."

The 2001 attacks heightened the push for a single command responsible for defense within U.S. borders, something that hasn't existed since the days of George Washington.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in April 2002 announced plans to create the command, and Eberhart, also commander in chief of North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, became its commander.

NORAD's mission has changed since the 2001 attacks to focus not only on potential air attacks overseas but within the country. NORAD has scrambled fighters or diverted patrols more than 1,500 times since Sept. 11, 2001.

Eberhart's dual roles have left him with a demanding schedule in a scramble to build a command from scratch.

Maj. Gen. Lee McFann, director of Northern Command operations, remembers responding to Hurricane Lili last year, the same night the command began initial operations last Oct. 1.

When the command was formed, leaders were given only days to get to Colorado, rather than the typical six months, and were told to worry about moving their families later, McFann said. Work often involved 12- or 16-hour days and weekends.

"There was frustration, long hours," Pino said. "But I say to them, 'You are doing something no one else in the military has had an opportunity to do."'