I still find it difficult not to get choked up when watching memorials about this horrific day in our nations history.
I’d like to share the following from Ken Campbell at Gunsite Academy:
“We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.” George W. Bush.
We remember where we were and the emotions we felt when we heard the news of the murdering terrorists attack on our sacred Nation. Do you remember where you were the night before? Do you remember how you felt that evening? Some of my senior friends told me, it was something similar to their experiences on December 7, 1941.
Our lives have changed in many ways, and will continue to do so. Our country came together as a Nation, as Americans, to overcome. We see it again the last few weeks in the response to the hurricane in Texas and Florida.
But sadly, many have forgotten the images of the planes striking the towers, the Pentagon and the plane load of heroes in Pennsylvania. Too many have forgotten the photos of victims leaping to their death to escape the advancing fires in the towers. Too may have forgotten the hundreds of fire and police lives lost in the towers collapse. Too many have forgotten the lives of our military lost in the war. Too many have forgotten the lives lost on terrorist events in our country.
President Teddy Roosevelt believed strongly in being an American. One of his many speeches on the topic was to the Knights of Columbus at Carnegie Hall in October 1915. A few paragraphs of that speech say so much:
"What is true of creed is no less true of nationality. There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.
The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else."
We need to read and heed those words. We cannot be a Nation divided. Regardless of race, creed, color, or nationality, if you choose to call the United States of America home, you need to stand with the Republic to fight the evil, foreign and domestic, so we may continue to be one of the few remaining bastions of Freedom in the world.
“Never forget those who died. Never forget those who killed them.” Patrick Rogers
God bless those who have given their last full measure and their families who carry on.
With humble respect,
Ken
and was suddenly very busy.