Dave Borgognoni '92, (center) President of the West Point Society of the San Francisco Bay area presents a commemorative gift to Guest Speaker, LTC Reid L. Sawyer, '92, (left). LTC Sawyer is the Director and one of the founders of the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point. (See Wikipedia history article of the CTC below). Flanking Borgognoni (right) is Gunnar Anderson '94, President of the West Point Society of the Silicon Valley.
At the time of the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, West Point's counterterrorism curriculum consisted of a single elective class. In order to fill this gap and provide greater educational resources in terrorism-related issues, the Academy welcomed the creation of the Combating Terrorism Center and included it in its Department of Social Sciences on February 20, 2003. Though thus a part of the United States Military Academy, the CTC was established with private funding and is an independent research group. Primary funding for the founding of the CTC was contributed by Vincent Viola, a 1977 graduate of the United States Military Academy and former chaiman of the New York Mercantile Exchange; significant initial support was also provided by Ross Perot, George Gilmore Jr. and Major (ret.) George Gilmore Sr. The Center's first Distinguished Chair was General (Retired) Wayne Downing until his death in 2007. General (Retired) John P. Abizaid, the former commander of Central Command, presently holds the Distinguished Chair. The current director, LTC Reid Sawyer, a founding member of the Center, returned to the Center in June 2008. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combating_Terrorism_Center#cite_note-3)
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