21 years later it is difficult to remember the unity and singlemindedness of purpose that seemed to emerge from the rubble of the terrorist attacks on The World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Aside from the usual suspects on the left and academia (but I repeat myself), the country was singularly focused on a common goal. Whatever the motivation was seemed to be unimportant…whether it was revenge or a desire to reshape the world order, we knew what needed to be done, and we were willing to do it.
But that energy and coherence of spirit was quickly co-opted by our venal and craven political class, who chose to use the most deadly domestic attack in our nation’s history as a tool for their own goals, most of which were antithetical to the desires of the American people.
And so our own dedication quickly dissipated, as we watched our young men die in foreign adventures without any clear end point, and without any real success against the root of the evil that was visited upon us.
It is hard to shake the suspicion that the initial response to the attacks was America’s last gasp as a unified nation, because the current state of our great country is that of a chaotic, splintered, angry mix of dissimilar parts…soon to separate; nastily certainly, and possibly bloodily.
But I will continue to believe that we are the greatest nation and people on earth, for no other reason than the existence of men like Rick Rescorla, and Stephen Siller, and Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, and Jeremy Glick, and Mychal Judge and hundreds of other regular Americans who did God’s work that day.
If we are to survive as a nation it will be through the work and the sacrifice of men like that, not the elitist political class who seeks not to guide but to rule.
