Last Tuesday Michelle VanMarm gave a talk at the Linn County Monthly GOP meeting on the events of September 11, 2001 I asked her to email me a text version of her thoughts. This a day to remember.
Six years ago, on 9/11, our country was attacked. 2,974 of our fellow Americans perished that day; more than died at Pearl Harbor. What made this attack so insidious was the planning and executing with one target in mind. Civilians. As we are all still targets today.
We must not forget the images of that morning; the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, Flight 93. We must not forget the expressions of the firefighters, with 100 pounds of gear on their backs, as they ascended the stairs. Knowing it would be hours before they reached those trapped above. We must not forget those who could not wait for the firefighters. Trapped on floors above the impact zone, the windows were their only avenue of escape. We must not forget the emotions on the faces of those on the streets below, as they watched the towers fall.
We must not forget our own emotions, painful as they may be; the horror, the grief, the anger. We must remember we are at war with an enemy who would kill you as easily as we pour our first cup of coffee in the morning. We are at war with a religion—an ideology. One that wants to look at the world, especially the West, and see a mirror-image of itself.
9/11 is not a day to just “put behind us and go on”, as we Americans often do. To forget, or even to let these images fade, is to invite our own peril; to invite the collapse of our very way of life, our very civilization.
We must not forget.
Updated: Tuesday, 11 September 2007 3:14 AM CDT
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