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Memories of horror will serve nation well

By Staff | Sep 19, 2001

A radio reporter on Monday made an open request to television executives: Stop running those images of the World Trade Center disaster. The reporter implored the executives to think of the families of the thousands of victims killed in the terrorist acts.

A steady diet of those moving and still pictures is difficult to handle. But it should be. And those images should not be forgotten.

This nation cannot afford during the next few months and God forbid years to tuck away that so many of our best and brightest perished at the hand of terrorists on Sept. 11. This nation must steel itself for the coming months and God forbid years as we search for those who are responsible and attempt to bring them to justice.

This nation will be put to a test it has not seen in more than 55 years.

It is time for a new generation to step up, to prove that America and all it stands for are worth paying the ultimate price. Many, many more American families will be hit with death before we finally take off our gloves and climb out of the ring.

At times, we will believe the price is too high that too many U.S. citizens have died, that the deed is taking far, far too long.

And it is during those times that we must pull out those newspapers and magazines of Sept. 11, 12 and 13. We must take a long look at the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. We must look at the hotter-than-hell fire bulging from those steel buildings. And we must think of the people who died inside them and those who died trying to escape them. We must think, too, of the firefighters and police officers who rushed into that inferno.

For it is those images that will sustain us during the months and God forbid years ahead. It is these reminders of the injustice that was visited on America that will help us through.

So we must look now. And we must remember later.

The dull, sickening heartache that America feels now must be called up when we’re ready to give up, when we’re ready to say the price is too high.

We cannot put a price on our freedom. And as long as someone else is willing to pay the ultimate price to take away our freedom and replace that precious commodity with terror and paranoia, we must not abandon the battle.

On Sept. 11, some believe America’s luck ran out.

But perhaps it was that America was served a wake-up call. Americans of the 21st Century were served a reminder that this country is still the land of the Pilgrims’ pride.

Let freedom ring.