Remembering

There's something about date/day anniversaries that always haunts me. It's one thing to recognize the date; it rolls around every year. But when the date corresponds to the day of the week of the event, the memory is somehow stronger.

Thus, when December 7 rolls around on a Sunday, Pearl Harbor takes on greater meaning. And today is the sixth anniversary of September 11, 2001, and it's on a Tuesday, just as then.

The casualties should have been worse. There have been so many complaints about things that went badly that day, yet the simple fact remains that over 50,000 people could have died, yet so many were saved by planning and training, and quiet acts of anonymous heroism.

The office where I work sits under one of Sacramento International Airport's departure routes. There's always something flying overhead. And that morning I looked up into empty, blue, silent skies.

Evil visited the United States that day, and a clear line was drawn. For over 30 years the United States had stood mute and opted to handle terrorism as a criminal act. For the first time we had a president that said no, that this required a stronger response than issuing an arrest warrant.

So many things went wrong that day, and so many things have gone wrong since then. Yet I thank God for President George W. Bush, flaws and mistakes and all, because he knows the nature of the evil we face, and what must be done to destroy this evil. I agree completely with Dirty Harry:

Six-years later I find comfort in just one thing. The one thing that has kept us safe. It's imperfect, this thing, it makes mistakes. But the only effective weapon we have is George W. Bush's determination to completely and forever destroy the ideology that committed this horrible crime. Knowing that as I write this brave men and women are fighting them where they live means something to me. Means everything.

Today, the animals who hit us six-years ago can be found in Iraq. Al-Queda is in Iraq. Al-Queda is fighting and dying to win Iraq.

God bless our President. God bless our troops.

Amen.