On September 18, Gold Star family members, museum staff, and the commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, Lt. Gen. Michael Conley, gathered at the 9/11 museum to dedicate a memorial to fallen Air Force commandos.
Air Force Special Tactics squadrons include combat controllers who talk to pilots and guide munitions dropped in support of ground troops, as well as Pararesecue men who train to recover downed fighter pilots and other service members missing in action. During the war on terror, the Special Tactics squadrons were deployed extensively alongside Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, and Marine Raiders.
The memorial is an octagonal wooden structure with name plates on it, 41 in all, giving the name, rank, unit, date, and location of that Air Commando's ultimate sacrifice. It is permanently on display from the Air Force to the 9/11 museum in Manhattan.
"Some of them are comrades in arms that I know the names and stories of,” Lt. Gen. Michael Conley said. “There’s a few I’m honored to call my friends—people I’ve served with, people I know their families, and people I knew operationally throughout our assignments…It’s a full circle moment to see [the memorial] in the place where it all started."
Seeing the names on the memorial was an emotional moment for the family members who had lost loved ones. "I’m so happy he is still talked about," said Michelle Biegalski, whose late fiancé, 1st Lt. Justin Wilkens, died in an airplane crash in Africa in 2012. "It’s been so long that you don’t often hear their names anymore. I don’t even have words for how special it was to be here, of all places. He would have loved every second of it."