A time for reflection

After a year of thinking about it, of contemplating how we will face it, Americans have reached the week that marks the first anniversary of the worst attack ever by an enemy of the United States on American soil.

It was a bright clear Tuesday morning, a September morning like hundreds of others. But the beauty was shattered by the convulsion of hijacked airplanes hitting their targets in New York City and Washington, D.C.

An enemy’s enmity toward Americans of every color, of every religion, of all economic backgrounds, rained down from the sky that morning and struck at the very heart of the nation’s business and political worlds.

In the skies over western Pennsylvania it is believed that passengers on a fourth hijacked airliner fought back against the enemy and caused the plane to crash to the ground well short of an intended target in the nation’s capital.

A year later the nation finds itself still at war against the terrorist forces believed to be responsible for the attack.

Additional action is apparently being contemplated by the nation’s leaders against nations that have supported or harbored the comrades of those who carried out the evil deed on Sept. 11, 2001.

The world has changed, and we cannot predict if there will be another attack on American soil, or where it may come, or how United States armed forces will strike at the enemy.

The people who should never be forgotten in the attack, however, are the innocent men and women who were killed at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.

Friends and neighbors from our communities were taken without provocation based solely on the fact that they were Americans – granted freedom and prosperity that those who killed them would never have been able to enjoy, or understand.

The remembrance services held throughout our coverage area were a fitting tribute to those who died.

Our collective anger should be directed at those responsible for this heinous attack, but our collective love should be directed toward the families of the victims’ and the memory of those who died.