1/ It's a blessing that almost none of us will ever have our moral and physical courage tested in the way that 9/11 tested the men and women who charged the cockpit of Flight 93, or who ran into the doomed WTC, or who rescued their friends in a burning Pentagon.
2/ Americans, as we always do, rally and respond. We meet crisis with courage, we face terror with resolve. We make a thousand mistakes before, during and after these moments, but some providential nature of our national character drags us in the general direction of the good.
3/ In a few years, there will be a generation of time since 9/11/01. Memories will fade, memorials will become brief and perfunctory, the heroes who survived that day will age and pass.
History will remember leadership and, as history does, but the cultural wound will scar over.
History will remember leadership and, as history does, but the cultural wound will scar over.
