And so we pass yet another September 11th.
It has been seven years since two planes tore into the twin towers at the World Trade Center in New York. Seven years after another plane collided into the Pentagon and seven years after Todd Beamer uttered, “let’s roll” in a failed, but extremely brave, attempt to save the passengers on United Airlines flight 93 before it crashed into a Pennsylvania field.
More than 2,800 people died on that day. Most of us not only remember exactly what we were doing, but we remember exactly what we were thinking. Our memories of that attack live on and will remain with all of us until the day we no longer linger in this world.
This day reminds us how vile war is. It beckons us to remember what it is like for every person who suffers in war. Hiroshima, the Holocaust, the World Wars, Viet Nam and more recently those enduring continuous carnage and battle in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Every one of us should realize how many other innocent people are out there reliving a battle day after day. We must note all those who endure grief at the hands of the few who do not know how to live in this world without violence., without war.
Carl von Clausewitz, who authored the book, On War, tells us “the first, the supreme act of judgment….is to decide the kind of war upon which they are embarking.” Seven years after the events of September 11th, while we remember, while we think about where we are going in this increasingly mismanaged world, while our very young men and women risk there lives in countries previously unknown, isn’t it time for us to be clear as to whether we are embarking on a ‘war’ to continue violence or one to end it?