Another September 11th Has Come and Gone

September 11, 2008 just passed. For those of us that were alive and old enough to remember when President Kennedy was assassinated remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when we got the word of his death. The same is true for those of us alive on the morning of September 11, 2001. In less than two hours our country changed, the world changed - we changed. I don't know about you but I went through waves of anger, fear, disbelief, confusion and pride.

Since 9/11, our economy was staggered, then improved and staggered again. We have been fighting the Global War on Terrorism on several fronts. In Afghanistan and Iraq we have engaged militarily. Recently the death toll of American service personnel topped 500 in Afghanistan and it is now over 4,000 in Iraq. With the death toll of the original 3,000 that died as a result of the airplanes that crashed and those emergency personnel now dying as a result of exposure at ground zero, it seems sometimes as though the price might be too high.
Was 9/11 handled correctly? Probably not, but how do you train for the unimaginable. Has the war on terrorism been prosecuted correctly? Probably not, Patton once said, "No plan survives first contact with the enemy - remember the enemy gets a vote!"

Did the Emergency Personnel that responded to Ground Zero, the Pentagon and that field in Pennsylvania perform heroically? Yes. Has our military performed remarkably? Yes, and far more than you will ever see in the mainstream press. Did this country bound with and try to support the original victim's families? Yes, unlike at any time in the past.

However, the threats of 9/11 still exist. The dangers of another attack still exist. Our borders are still easily defeated, our economy is struggling again and now we're trying to elect a President. The After the 9/11 attacks, American flags that suddenly sprouted all over the country on cars and trucks, business and homes have, for the most part have disappeared. The pain of loss for the families of the original victims hopefully has eased, but it will never go away. The pain of loss for the families of the military dead is still fresh.

So another September 11th has passed. Like the Fourth of July and Pearl Harbor Day, it has become a day of deep feelings and difficult memories, but it was also a day when this country came together. For a few months we were just Americans. We weren't hyphenated Americans, we were just Americans and we stood together. We weren't Democrats and Republicans, we were just Americans. We weren't Liberals or Conservatives, we were just Americans.

I wonder what the world will be like on the next September 11th but I pray we never have another 9/11.