Posted on 09/12/2001 4:43:42 AM PDT by areafiftyone
It is a solemn moment in our history. God knows the American people did not want this fight. ... But now that we are in it, there is nothing for us to do but to see it through with everything we've got."
Everything we've got. Which is what, exactly? Liberty, democracy, an abiding belief in the strength of this nation, an unshakable confidence in the courage and compassion of the American people.
That is what those responsible for the nightmarish acts of terrorism can never understand. They have destroyed countless lives — one cannot begin to imagine what the final death toll will be. Mayor Giuliani said, "The number of casualties will be more than most of us can bear."
The cowards responsible have destroyed towering symbols of the greatest city in the greatest nation in the world. They have not destroyed that city, that nation or the American spirit. If anything, the city, the nation, the spirit are stronger.
America is a concept. But concepts are defended and upheld within the individual heart. Our hearts may have been broken, but they continue to beat. Most incredibly — something terrorists cannot grasp — they beat with a love for this nation and for one another.
New York yesterday, today and tomorrow bleeds. But for everyone suffering, there is a fellow New Yorker, a fellow American, reaching out to stanch the flow, to comfort, to help. And, above all, to sacrifice.
In the streets of downtown yesterday morning, streets filled with choking smoke, flaming debris, bodies, panicked people — in those streets of terror, in the midst of unspeakable horror, the images were of acts of individual love for one's fellow man, woman and child. As people fled, it wasn't every man for himself. It was everyone helping anyone they could. Those choking and blinded found themselves in the arms of someone stronger who could breathe and could see. The thousands of helpless were led to safety by those whose own lives were at risk.
And did you try to get through to the Red Cross yesterday, or any blood bank? The phone lines could not handle any more calls. The response was immediate and overwhelming, from coast to coast. Here in the city, at least 500 people were standing on line at St. Vincent's Medical Center to donate blood within a couple of hours of the tragedy. A newsman on Fifth Ave. reported seeing a convoy of 18-wheelers headed south, escorted by police cars, from upstate. What was in the trucks? Water, bandages, blood, pharmaceuticals? Who knows. It was help on its way to strangers, victims, fellow Americans.
The scene was repeated throughout the metro area. Police and fire companies, hospitals, volunteer ambulance squads did what they could. In the city, God knows how many NYPD and FDNY funerals there will be. God knows how many lie buried in the rubble, for they were the first on the scene when the first plane crashed into 1 World Trade Center. And along with the countless lives lost here, let us not forget the devastation at the Pentagon, the innocents in the hijacked planes — all sacrificed on an altar of bloodlust.
Who is responsible? The name most mentioned yesterday was that of Osama Bin Laden, who despite his denials is a creature of terror. But whoever is to blame, they will be found out. They must and will be brought to justice. We did not want this fight, but this is a deadly struggle between those who wish to impose their way on others through the rule of terror and those who wish to live in a world defined by the rule of law.
America was tested yesterday, as President Bush said. Our values, our commitments, our will and, yes, our strength and determination. Yesterday, our vulnerabilities were stripped bare before a world that both hungers for, and resents, our freedoms. But as the power-mad engineers of this catastrophe rub their hands and cackle at their bloody handiwork, let them be sure of one thing: There is no nation stronger than the United States of America. Our resolve runs very, very deep.
These murderers must be, will be, hunted to the ends of the earth, and brought to justice. And they will rue the day.
Oh yes, the quote at the beginning of this column? It appeared on this editorial page Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Daily News also wrote this: "When you are attacked, there is nothing to do but fight. And when a nation gets into a war, the way to fight it is to fight to the hilt, with the remorseless aim of winning the war. It is bad enough to get into a war — any war — but it is infinitely worse to lose it once you are in."
Every one of us Americans is in this war now. Our greatest weapons are liberty and freedom and an overwhelming love of our country and of humanity. And those weapons are not to be found in the enemy's arsenal.
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