Let’s Roll

 
Today, September 11, 2011, marks the ten-year anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks perpetrated on American soil in our nation’s history. A solemn day and a day of remembrance, but above all, a day of determination and strength. The strength of the American people, and I’m proud to be an American rat.
 
Today is a day to remember the fallen, to recognize the first responders, to respect those whose loved ones were lost or whose bodies were mangled thanks to a cowardly terrible act, and today is also a day to acknowledge that each American, no matter what our geographic location, was personally and directly affected by what took place ten years ago this morning. Today is a day to remember that it is indeed about the people in New York and Washington, and it is also about us. Us as individuals and as a nation; us as unwavering.
  

Out of the ashes that blanketed the New York City skyline and out of the destructive fires of the Pentagon has risen a new people, tough and tenacious. From that day, each of us has marked the events of our lives as “before 9/11” vs. “after 9/11,” and though in many historically defining moments it’s appropriate to say that a “new generation” was formed after such and such had taken place, the truth is that all of us, regardless of age, became a new generation that day. And it is good.
 
With the fire of our American forebears passed down to us through the centuries and with the bonds formed by now our own defining marks, we stand hand-in-hand and paw-in-paw and say or squeak with resolve – to ourselves and to the world – that we will not back down and we will never give up. So in the words of United Airlines Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer, who led others in a rush to thwart the plans of terrorists bound for D.C. on that fateful September day, we declare as one nation with one accord, “Let’s roll.”
 
Keepin’ it squeak,
Bob