9-11 Reflection

Shining brilliantly in the clear blue sky above America’s east coast, the sun promised a good travel day. The summer of 2001 was nearing its end as thousands of lower Manhattan office workers followed their usual morning routine. Many worked in the skyline-defining twin towers of the World Trade Center. In Washington, meanwhile, employees of the Department of Defense were at their desks in a section of the Pentagon. On this September 11 morning, four planes were scheduled to leave American airports within twelve minutes of each other. Aboard each of those planes were terrorists who were part of a coordinated plan to kill innocent people. Had the weather b8een bad, or the flights delayed for some other reason, the terrorists’ planned actions may not have occurred as they did. But this is not the story of what might-have-been. It is the story of the worst attack on U.S. soil since the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The hearts of many Americans were broken the moment the tips of the planes collided with the buildings. The life of the daily American was completely shattered throughout these “102 minutes that changed the world.” Sad to say, 9/11 will always be equated with the loss of many lives and the destruction of many families. It will always generate a feeling of insecurity and because of such, none of our lives will ever be "normal" as it was before 9/11. It will remind us how fragile life is and that because of other entities larger than themselves, our children and loved ones will and have died to fight a war that many of us will never really know the real reason behind it.

Following the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush demanded that Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime turn over Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, to the United States. Addressing a joint meeting of Congress on September 20, Bush vowed to direct "every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war" to defeat the "global terror network." Congress granted Bush the authority to use military force. On that very same day, all Americans were part of the “War on Terror.”

War in our lifetime is and has been necessary from time to time. It is unfortunate and perhaps one day it will not be needed, but right now, to keep your freedom to ponder such things, it is necessary. I don't support war in Iraq and never have. I do, however, support the troops. The war is nothing but a means to solve the problem. An unfortunate necessity, war won America's independence, ended slavery in this country, and ended the Holocaust. It may not be the best solution, but sometimes it's the only solution.

The feelings of sadness and loss with which we look back on Sept. 11, 2001, have shifted focus over the last five years. The attacks themselves have begun to acquire the aura of inevitability that comes with being part of history. We can argue about what one president or another might have done to head them off, but we cannot really imagine a world in which they never happened, any more than we can imagine what we would be like today if the Japanese had never attacked Pearl Harbor.