Remembering 9/11

 Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  Life as we knew it has forever changed since that day.  As the Twin Towers fell, Americans were stripped of the freedom they had so long taken for granted.  Can you remember how you felt on that day ten years ago?  Most of us have not been asked to sacrifice much if anything while we go on with our daily lives.  We don't think much about an enemy who wants to destroy us and our way of life. Ten years seems so long ago!
     Osama bin Laden is dead but ten years after the World Trade Center was destroyed we still live in the 9/11 era.  America's foreign policy is defined by the choices our leaders made while Ground Zero smoldered.  We fight our enemies with boots on the ground, covert warfare, indefinite detention and drone attacks but are we better off than we were ten years ago?  I think we are.  The capabilities of our enemies to harm us has been greatly diminished and for the past ten years we have not been blindsided like we were on September 11, 2001.
     America says it is not trying to transform the Muslim world yet we have spent trillions of dollars and thousand of lost lives trying to do just that.  About all we have to show for our efforts is a steady erosion of America's posture in the world.  But one thing is certain, we will never be the same.  America is the strongest and best country on earth.  She will survive even if there is another attack like the one on September 11, 2001 because America is one nation under God.
The 9/11 monument is dedicated to all Texans who died during the September 11 terrorist attacks and during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and was commissioned by Governor Rick Perry in 2002 on the first anniversary of the attacks. It was completed and unveiled on the attack’s two-year anniversary in 2003. Numerous designs were submitted from artists, architects and private citizens from around the state. The final design by O’Connell, Robertson and Associates of Austin was chosen by the Governor’s Office and the Texas State Cemetery Committee. Included in the design are two steel columns from Ground Zero that the public are encouraged to touch and examine. The columns were not altered in any way and were recovered in the state in which they stand.