We shall never forget. The children born on that day are now considered adults. They are able to vote, to drive, to fly without a guardian. They will not remember the world before the Day when the Towers fell, and the Pentagon was smashed, and a plane dove into a field powered by heroes who would not allow it to become a weapon on their watch. They will not remember a time before the kabuki theatre of the TSA which does nothing but inconvenience and terrorize innocent travelers. Before the time that metal detectors and security barred the free entrance of citizens to museums and other possible targets of those who hate the country where they were born and want to bring the horrors of that Day back.
They can't remember, but we can remember for them. We can keep the memory of the heroes bright. The men and women who ran into a building they knew could fall at any moment. Those who helped hundreds if not thousands get out of the burning tower safely. The regular everyday ordinary people who ran into the dust and debris to do something, anything, in the wake of the collapse. The men who fought hijackers for control of a potential weapon of mass destruction. The people of our great nation who banded together in solidarity for a few shining moments to face unafraid the new specter of terrorism that had loomed onto our shores.
We remember.
We will never forget.
We will stand, and tell the stories, and when we are old and our voices waver in the telling, there will be other voices that will take up the tales and tell them for us. Because we did not stay quiet, and we did not allow those who died to pass unheralded from the face of the earth.
We are a living testament to the America that was before the Day. The America that can come again, if we never forget what was.
Buckled steel beams from the towers that fell in NYC on the Day.
The forces that brought down the tower may have been physical, but the actions that set them in motion were mental: hatred. (All photos taken in the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Washington, DC)
Crumpled supports from the Twin Towers