Reading the timeline each year is a sobering experience, but it doesn’t matter what time of year I look at the images from that day. They haunt me. There were 2996 immediate deaths on September 11th, 2001. There were people who cheered that day, celebrating an attack on America. But it wasn’t just an attack on us. It was an attack on the world, with victims from over 90 countries. And those countries came together in the wake of the attack to bring those behind it to justice.
9/11 isn’t over. Victims and rescuers alike suffer life threatening medical conditions due to the exposure to toxins during the attacks and continue to succumb to these lingering wounds.
And then, there’s the war. It doesn’t end. In the ensuing 17 years we’ve definitely taken the fight to the enemy and even cut their head off a time or two. The names change, but they remain enemies of freedom. We must secure our future.
Even now, the world is faced with the threat of a resurgent Islamic fundamentalism that targets our ideals in both word and deed. We must oppose them in every case, lest our efforts thus far, be in vain.
Never Forgive, Never Forget
