REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

It has been four years, yet the images are just as fresh and real in our hearts and minds as if it were yesterday. It has been four years, yet the feeling of loss still leaves an empty place in the pit of our stomach. It has been four years and the faces of the heroes that ran into those trembling buildings as others ran out remind us of the greatest and best that America is. It has been four years and even in the midst of the devastation along the Gulf Coast we remember the heroes both surviving and fallen, the heroes who said, "let's roll," and prevented the nightmare on that day from becoming even more unbearable, the heroes who sacrificed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, though they did not choose and whose lives we mourn even unto this day. It has been four years and the skyline of Manhattan still looks lonely as the majestic towers that once were, leave a ghostly image as our minds eye still see them standing. Life has continued, much has been replaced and repaired. The tears have subsided except when we look back and remember and maybe that is our failure that in our anger and need for retribution we as a country have placed that feeling of loss and sorrow into a hidden place in our collective conscience that we have forgotten why we must fight and why we must stand for what we believe in and what we know are our blessings of liberty and freedom. Those that carried out that which we have lost still seek to destroy all that we are and prevent all that we can be. They still seek each day to try to take away as they did on that dreadful day in September the safety and security that we have always known because we are Americans. They seek to make the sacrifice that so many made on that day and still continue to make on the battlefields that exist to prevent such a day from happening again, a sacrifice that is in vain as they attempt to destroy this, "shining city on a hill." Yet despite their despicable attempts we still exist, freedom still shines and the light of liberty still shines in the harbor as a beacon overlooking and protecting that sacred place of sacrifice. Why ? Is it because we are a super power unmatched in history ? Is it because we have a resolve and determination that can overcome even the most bleak of circumstances ? Is it because we have an almost righteous purpose to preserve who we are ? Yes it is all of this and much more. Yet more than all it is because we are free and there is no power on this earth whether it is extremists who seek to kill us or storms which destroy that can take that freedom from us. It is our birth right as Americans given to us by the collective wisdom of our Founding Fathers and instilled within us through a Divine spark that all men are created equal and free and this nation embodies that and that is why we fight and that is why we die and that is why we must remember and never forget those images of that terrible day. Never forget those who gave their life both on that day and the many days that Americans have died protecting our freedom. As we remember on this fourth anniversary let us not take their sacrifice for granted. Let us replay those images in our mind and in the public forum so that we remember why we fight and why we must defeat the despicable terror. But most of all let us as one stand firm in our resolve and commitment to the memory of each sacrifice, of each heroic act of each who have shed their blood fighting for our liberty to live our life to fulfill the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln,"that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that Government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the face of the earth."

Ken Taylor