HER STORY

The events on 9/11 hardened our hearts. But for Shannen Rossmiller, it fueled a patriotic fire.

She was born on a family farm at the height of the Vietnam War, in a remote corner of Montana known for its majestic mountains and Minuteman missile silos. In this contradictory setting, between chores and classes, the young Shannen began the hobby of reading true-crime books -- especially involving serial killers.

After graduating high school with honors, she was immediately drawn toward law while attending college. That led to paralegal work, then to the bench. In the year 2000 at the age of 29, the now mother of three became the youngest female judge in American history.

On September 11th, Shannen would suffer both physical and emotional trauma. On the same fateful day terrorists attacked the USA, Shannen fell in a home accident. Stuck in bed with a broken pelvic bone for six weeks, she just stared at the repetitive TV images of jihadist mass-murder -- wondering how anyone could hate so much. Then destiny -- and determination -- took over.

Armed with her criminal-justice background, the judge absorbed more than 50 books on Middle Eastern culture -- including the Koran. Then, to understand the holy-war rantings on websites, she taught herself to read and write the Arabic language. Emboldened to go further, Shannen decided she could no longer take a passive interest in the evil messages online. She created various male Muslim personalities for cover and fearlessly began "trolling" for terrorists in the Internet's jihadist chat rooms.

Realizing her unique combination of talents and online methods could be used to snare the West's new enemies, Shannen volunteered to help authorities take them down. At first, her out-of-the-box Internet stings and no-nonsense country attitude raised eyebrows in official Washington. But grateful federal agents and overseas operatives quickly saw success, and adopted her as one of their own. The judge's pioneering undercover work helped to launch a new field of espionage, called "cyber-counterintelligence."

Since 9/11, Shannen has worked with authorities on more than 200 undercover operations around the globe -- involving everything from jihadist cells, to weapons caches, to bomb plots. The results: Three extremists have been convicted in the USA, while another dozen high-profile terrorists have been detained abroad.

After six years of court duty, Shannen retired from the bench in 2006 to accept the position of senior civil-litigation specialist for the Montana Attorney General. But despite ongoing threats to her and her family, she continues her critical work as a cyber-spy.

In a private ceremony in October of 2006, an international organization of Middle East experts honored her with its first-ever award for heroism. And web bloggers continue to post their accolades -- as one recently put it -- "Shannen Rossmiller is what America should be made of."