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Lee's Summit, MO —
Today’s date returns like a nightmare.
As you read this, ceremonies might already be under way at the three 9/11 crash sites. Vice President Joe Biden is at Somerset, Pa., remembrance is paramount at the Pentagon, and in New York City citizens and relatives of the victims of the World Trade Center attacks are reading the names of all those who perished that infamous day.
All told, 2,977 were killed, including the 19 hijackers.
Within days after 9/11, violence against American Muslims erupted in many American cities. President Bush, in an attempt to assuage the nerves of angry Americans, told a national television audience just six days after the attack, “Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America; they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior.”
Eleven years ago today, terrorist al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the attacks, was beaming with evil glee. On May 2, 2011, he was killed in his Abbottabad, Pakistan, home in a daring raid by U.S. Navy Seals. His body lies somewhere on an ocean floor.
Salon.com reports that compensation for the Twin Towers first responders and survivors is still evolving. Sheila Birnbaum, who is in charge distributing $2.7 billion to some 40,000 ground-zero responders and survivors said, “We haven’t yet received the avalanche of claims that might have been expected,” noting that only about 300 people have filed eligibility forms so far while 20,000 others are receiving treatment, some for cancer.
Consider these coincidences: On Sept. 11, 1941, ground was broken for the building of the Pentagon, and on this day in 1609 explorer Henry Hudson discovered the Hudson River and Manhattan Island, future home of the Twin Towers.
I had the honor of speaking at the first candlelight ceremony for those heroic 40 passengers and crew of United Flight 93 who overpowered their terrorists captors and crashed the plane in a field in Pennsylvania. Later I wrote of their courageous saga in one of my books – a poem dedicated to the first responders and ending with a simple reminder:
That 40 men and women aboard Flight 93
A patriotic message; they died for you and me.
Lest we forget.
I give you President John Adams’ toast: Independence forever.
Today’s date returns like a nightmare.
As you read this, ceremonies might already be under way at the three 9/11 crash sites. Vice President Joe Biden is at Somerset, Pa., remembrance is paramount at the Pentagon, and in New York City citizens and relatives of the victims of the World Trade Center attacks are reading the names of all those who perished that infamous day.
All told, 2,977 were killed, including the 19 hijackers.
Within days after 9/11, violence against American Muslims erupted in many American cities. President Bush, in an attempt to assuage the nerves of angry Americans, told a national television audience just six days after the attack, “Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America; they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior.”
Eleven years ago today, terrorist al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the attacks, was beaming with evil glee. On May 2, 2011, he was killed in his Abbottabad, Pakistan, home in a daring raid by U.S. Navy Seals. His body lies somewhere on an ocean floor.
Salon.com reports that compensation for the Twin Towers first responders and survivors is still evolving. Sheila Birnbaum, who is in charge distributing $2.7 billion to some 40,000 ground-zero responders and survivors said, “We haven’t yet received the avalanche of claims that might have been expected,” noting that only about 300 people have filed eligibility forms so far while 20,000 others are receiving treatment, some for cancer.
Consider these coincidences: On Sept. 11, 1941, ground was broken for the building of the Pentagon, and on this day in 1609 explorer Henry Hudson discovered the Hudson River and Manhattan Island, future home of the Twin Towers.
I had the honor of speaking at the first candlelight ceremony for those heroic 40 passengers and crew of United Flight 93 who overpowered their terrorists captors and crashed the plane in a field in Pennsylvania. Later I wrote of their courageous saga in one of my books – a poem dedicated to the first responders and ending with a simple reminder:
That 40 men and women aboard Flight 93
A patriotic message; they died for you and me.
Lest we forget.
I give you President John Adams’ toast: Independence forever.
