It was almost 60 years after Pearl Harbor, almost 30 since the last troops left Vietnam. America had grown fat, dumb, and happy under an umbrella of prosperity. God and country had become a tired old joke, we were more concerned with dot-com millionaires, pop stars, and how to spend this year's bonus. The flag was something that we brought out for the Fourth of July and then put away. The military tried with little success to land qualified recruits who were willing to work under awful conditions for crappy pay. It was understood and accepted that our government officials, at every level and from whichever party, were ineffectual jackasses whose main concern was keeping the cushy job that they had. We elected people because they were the lesser of two evils, not based on any leadership abilities or convictions that they held. If anything, strong beliefs were a deterrent to election.

Then along came a group of dedicated individuals whose hatred for America eclipsed any concern for the bleak future that they faced, or for their own lives. They came to our homeland and, for the first time in our history, slaughtered thousands as we watched in horror, deer in the international headlights. We screamed, we wept, we raged against the unseen aggressor......who let this happen to us?

I'll tell you who let this happen - we did, every one of us. We sat smug and pompous, daring someone to take a shot at us while we looked the other way. Well guess what....they did and it was a hard one. And the thing that bothers me the most about it is all the people that we let down that day.
We let down the people on those airplanes that went down, and the people in the buildings that were hit, and all of their families.
We let down the FDNY, and the NYPD, and the Port Authority, people who had to either give their lives or look on as their brothers and sisters perished. We let down the citizens of New York City and Washington, DC. We let down our kids, who will forever equate air travel and NYC with death and destruction. We let down Grandma and apple pie.
The ones we let down the most are the ones who have ever worn the uniform of the US military, men and women who fought and died so that we could feel safe within our borders. The 18 and 19 year olds who died thousands of miles from home, bleeding in a jungle, or on a beach, or in a snowy forest. Sailors whose ships were blown out from under them. Men who returned home forever scarred by the things that they had experienced. And we also let down the ones who are about to go fight and die for our freedom and safety, the heroes of tomorrow.

So now it is up to us to redeem ourselves, to make sure that the sacrifices that have come before, and the ones yet to come, mean something. We have to do our part, even if our part is to show up for work and be productive, or to cheer on the ones who are about to fight. Yes, wave the flag, yes, cheer for America - but also make sure that you are one of the people making America a place worth defending, the strong and great country that it has been since its birth. Never forget the huge cost of our previous selfishness, a cost not measured in dollars alone, but also in shattered lives and broken hearts.