In Memory of September 11th

A day the world changed forever.

Ten years later, the agonizing pain of 9/11 is still as vivid as the day it happened. The viciousness of the al-Qaeda attack will be remembered for the horrific death perpetrated on innocent civilians, but the attacks were also about destroying the financial, political and military symbols of the United States.

While the covert double-tap of Osama bin Laden laid to rest some of the pent up anguish of Americans, what hasn’t changed are the repercussions from 9/11 on the American lifestyle. The nation is still constantly under threat from terrorists and the freedoms once enjoyed are now less free.

The U.S. has been at war for more than eight years and if Congress approves the President’s 2012 budget war-funding requests, post 9/11 operations will have cost $1.415 trillion. Meanwhile, as Middle East dictators fall like dominos, the outcomes are at best cautious and the winds of change will leave exhausted Americans in a very different political landscape. 

Americans are still healing a decade later and none of us will forget where we were that day. Along with the 2,998 victims on 9/11, there have been 6,211 U.S. military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the Ground-Zero workers who have become seriously ill due to the toxins released into the air that day. The U.S. has paid a high price because of 9/11, and after the U.S. took the gloves off so did the people of Middle East.

Al-Qaeda and bin Laden’s crimes against humanity were meant to denigrate civilization and drag it back to medieval times. And, its tentacles are long and its ideology deeply rooted as Americans like the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, or the Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awaki, who grew up in New Mexico, continue the terror against the West. The pockets of terrorism are charged with hatred and while none of us are safe, it is time for the U.S. military to come home and for Americans to rebuild their struggling economy and heal the wounds of a decade at war.

On September 11th, the 9/11 Memorial will open at the spot where the Twin Towers once stood. It will be inaugurated by the families of the victims and open to the public on September 12th. There will also be events around the nation and in other places around the world. In this time of reflection, we can never forget the crime against the innocent on 9/11, the price paid for war, the radically different world in which we live, and our resolve not to be intimidated by the forces of evil. “Let’s Roll.”  

By Tony Munoz, Edior-In-Chief of The Maritime Executive Magazine and the MarEx e-Newsletter.