Remembering is Important

I did one of those quick polls on CNN earlier today that posed the question, "Should we stop having large scale remembrances for 911?" I clicked no. I was quite surprised when I saw the current results were that 51% of people disagreed with me. That is, they think it is time to move on a little. They must not have heard the woman I just heard on the radio describing talking to her husband who was on the 105th floor of Tower 2.

Listening to this woman telling the story of hearing her husband's breathing beginning to get worse and worse, and how he passed out at one moment almost put you in her shoes, at least it did enough to hope Bin 'Ladin is dead.

They stayed on the phone with each other as the smoke started pouring up from the floors below. She watched on her TV as things began to fall off of the burning building. Both of them knowing what had already happened with the first tower, and that there was no way for him to get out, she told him "I think its time for us to say goodbye." She said that he seemed peaceful as he repeated over and over to her ,"I love you, I love you." And then there was a loud crack, and he was gone.

This woman's story moved me to tears. I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to be in that building and have Anne on the other end of that phone, and to say goodbye for the last time. I cannot bear the thought of having to make the decision to say goodbye for the last time. Most of us can't and hopefully will not ever be able to.

There are almost 3,000 other stories like the one above. Almost 3,000 reminders as to why it isn't too early to give this day the amount of respect it still deserves. Most importantly, it should remind us all that some of the people that did this are still out there, and that for every one of them that we have killed there are many willing to take their place. We don't need to live in fear and change our lives, or succumb to the will of these soulless sacks of skin. But maybe we should keep being reminded until we don't need to be anymore, until all of the questions can be answered. Most importantly, in my opinion: Killing people who want to kill us is the obvious solution, but seems a temporary fix as there isn't a shortage of these people. The tougher question, and I think the one that provides the more permanent solution, is how do we get these people to never want to kill us in the first place. If we can answer that, then we "win" the war against terror.