On September 11, 2001, at a little before 9 AM, Central time, I turned on my television to a scene Americans haven't seen since December 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Terrorists, in a savage act of war, had hijacked our own commercial airliners and turned them into guided missiles, destroying the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and a wing of the Pentagon in Washington, DC, killing an unbelievable, and perhaps, uncountable number of innocent people. A fourth hijacked plane, one which was, perhaps, destined to destroy the White House or our nation's Capitol, was, thanks to a few brave, selfless people, made to crash into a Pennsylvania field instead.

The people who died on these four airplanes and in the buildings that were hit were not only from the United States, but from other countries as well. They were military personnel, office workers, tourists and bystanders; men, women and children; all killed by men hoping to cripple this nation and bring it to its knees. More lives were lost by the firefighters, police, medical personnel, personnel from the Port Authority and ordinary citizens who rushed into the buildings without thinking of their own safety and were trapped, injured and killed when the towers collapsed.

Spectators along the Brooklyn shore
look toward Manhattan
Photo/AP

Firemen raising the flag
over the World Trade Center site
Photo/AP

New York City, after the attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center
Photo/AP

I don't know why the men who did this chose us, or those particular targets, but if they thought it would cause us to cower and run in fear, cripple our economy or disable us permanently, they don't know America. This act of cowardice has backfired on them, unleashing, instead of the divisiveness and fear they must have thought we'd respond with, a nationwide feeling of outrage and national unity. This big, good natured, sometimes lazy giant has awakened--and it is MAD!
Yes, we were shocked, shaken to our core, and saddened more than words can say by the destruction and the senseless loss of so many innocent lives. We stumbled and reeled a bit in reaction to this "sucker punch", but we'll get up, we'll rebuild what was destroyed, and we will stand, with our flag proudly held high, presenting a united front and vowing to find and punish the people who would do such heinous things.
To paraphrase an old song:
"You don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't spit into the wind. You don't pull the mask off of the Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with US!"