A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining. Today, our nation saw evil — the very worst of human nature — and we responded with the best of America. With the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could.

…Tonight, I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a Power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23:

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.”

This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world. – President George W. Bush, September 11, 2001

Foxnews.com reports that

Four Marines were killed Thursday at a Chattanooga, Tenn., Navy training center, in what authorities called a possible “act of domestic terrorism” that consisted of two attacks carried out by a lone gunman at military facilities just seven miles apart, officials said.

The unidentified gunman shot up a recruiting center before driving to the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center and killing four Marines before he was shot, authorities said. Sources told Fox News police chased the gunman from the recruiting center to the Center, where the killings took place. The FBI and military police were investigating the attack, but authorities could not rule out the possibility of terrorism. 
“We are treating this as an act of domestic terrorism,” said Bill Killian, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

The names of the Marines who were reportedly shot were not immediately released pending notification of their families. The Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center lies along a bend in the Tennessee River, northeast of downtown Chattanooga.

Despite Killian’s statement, an FBI Special Agent Ed Reinhold told reporters that it may have been a criminal act. The gunman was killed, but authorities did not comment on his identity, motivation or the circumstances of his death. Authorities said the gunman did not work at either military facility.

Reinhold said all the dead were killed at the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center Chattanooga. It sits between Amnicola Highway and a pathway that runs through Tennessee RiverPark, a popular park at a bend in the Tennessee River northeast of downtown Chattanooga. It’s in a light industrial area that includes a Coca-Cola bottling plant and Binswanger Glass.

The two entrances to the fenced facility have unmanned gates and concrete barriers that require approaching cars to slow down to drive around them.

Marilyn Hutcheson, who works at Binswanger Glass just across the street from the center on Amnicola Highway, said she heard a barrage of gunfire around 11 a.m.

“I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many,” she said. “It was rapid fire, like pow pow pow pow pow, so quickly. The next thing I knew, there were police cars coming from every direction.”

President Obama was briefed by his national security team on the shooting involving two military sites, according to White House spokesman Eric Schultz.

In the first incident, the gunman, in a silver Mustang, drove up to the Armed Forces Career Center in a strip mall on Lee’s Highway and sprayed the facade with gunfire before driving off, officials said. An unidentified police officer was shot in the ankle, but not seriously injured, according to reports.

A federal law enforcement official told Fox News that officers from FBI’s Knoxville field office responded to the scene.

The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that there is a heavy police presence at the scene, along with five ambulances.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it was holding departing flights at their gates in Chattanooga, with delays projected to last 15 minutes or less.

“This is a very, very terrible situation,” Andy Berke, the city’s mayor told reporters. “I’m very concerned about what’s going on. We need to figure out how to handle it.”

Later yesterday…

Charles Krauthammer told viewers Thursday on “Special Report with Bret Baier” that the shooting of four Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee “is in all probability an example of radical Islam at work.” 

However, he cautioned against overstating ISIS’ influence on domestic attacks, noting that similar incidents, such as the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, predate the terrorist group.

The gunman in Thursday’s attack, 24-year-old Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, was also killed. The investigation into the shooter’s motive is ongoing.

“This is in all probability an example of radical Islam at work, and you know I think our emphasis on ISIS is a little overstated because we’ve had these attacks that predate ISIS,” Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor, said.

“Nidal Hasan, when he shot and killed thirteen Americans, stood up on a table and yelled out “Allah Akbar,” [and] was acting pre-ISIS,” Krauthammer said.

“What ISIS does is I think it gives direction, organization, and because of its command of the social media can actually activate people in a way that was more random before,” he said.

“But, the general issue is radical Islam. And unless we have a president who immediately says this is a lone gunman, how does he know?”

Then, last night on Fox News…

Donald Trump joined Bill O’Reilly tonight to discuss the horrific shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee. 

Four Marines were killed today when a gunman opened fire at two separate military centers.

A police officer was also wounded and suffered non-life threatening injuries. The suspected shooter has been ID’d as 24-year-old Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez.

The names of the Marines who were reportedly shot were not immediately released pending notification of their families.

The 2016 GOP presidential candidate told O’Reilly that it’s “ridiculous” that the Marines aren’t allowed to carry guns at the centers.

“These are four great Marines … and that they’re not allowed to carry guns is absolutely ridiculous,” Trump stated. 

He said that the country needs to have better intelligence and stronger protection. 

Trump also stated that President Obama refuses to use the term “Islamic terrorism,” but it’s happening all over the world. 

“It’s going to get worse in our country and we better start fighting a lot tougher than we’re fighting right now Bill,” he said. 

Obama has been courting the Islamic World since his July 2009 speech to them at the University of Cairo, Egypt.

Why do Obama and his Liberal Minions continue to naively defend these barbarians, and, in Obama’s case, give a Rogue Nation of Radical Muslims the nuclear bomb?

Are they so contrary, as to not realize that Radical Islam punishes every single social issue that American Liberals so “righteously” defend in this nation?

The maddening thing is that every time you challenge liberals on this fact, they try to equate radical Islam with American Christianity.

Let’s talk about “radicalization” for a moment…

When Christians become “radicalized”, we want to share the testimony of what God has done for us through His love, with everyone we meet. We get involved in our local church and we become better fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and American Citizens.

When Muslims become “radicalized”, they want to “kill the Infidels” in the name of “Allah the Merciful”.

In the case of the massacre in Chattanooga yesterday, immersion into Radical Islam led a young man from Kuwait to “kill the infidels” that horrendous day.

In the case of the barbarians of ISIS, it has turned them into doppelgangers of the Nazi Butchers of Dachau.

Islam and Christianity present two very different Deities, who may share some similarities, but who have different identities and ultimately different standards. To pretend they are the same is not only to be clueless of the faith of 74% of the citizens of this nation, but, to be ignorant of an integral part of our American Heritage, the legacy of Christian Faith, which our Founding Fathers bequeathed us.

For Liberals to deny that, is disingenuous at best, and just plain out-and-out lying at worst.

If Obama and his minions do not wake up from their egocentric naiveté and smell what they have been shoveling, America will be hit by more massacres like yesterday’s, culminating in mushroom clouds over the Heartland.

May God hold the families of those Marines that were killed yesterday in the hollow of his Hand.

And, may He protect our country for those who would destroy us, both those living among us and those dwelling in foreign lands. 

Until He Comes,

KJ