by Nita Tyson

Created on: September 14, 2009   Last Updated: September 17, 2009

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." If there is one thing that the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon taught America, it is that we have enemies that we must keep close. We must spend time with our enemies, and understand them as we do those we call our friends.

9/11 took America from its infancy of only 225 years and pitted it against one of the world's oldest nations and religions that are melded into a terrifying and interlocking parody of church and state. No longer do Americans survive complacently in a world that is torn by strife, blithely wandering through the minefield called "It Can't Happen to Us". After 9/11 we realized, as individuals and nations, that it CAN happen to us, and it can happen to those we love.

Monuments of American commerce, engineering, and defense died on September 11, 2001, but it was the thousands of souls that gave their lives in a battle for American Freedom that we will always remember. And more than remembering these lives for the battle, we remember them for showing us that there is a battle, that we were too complacent, that we had gone to sleep snug in our beds every night thinking that we would never see battle on American soil.

We have seen battle, and it has tested us. Forever will we remember our forefathers, and the sacrifices they made to give America birth. Standing beside Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Washington are the brave men and women who lost their lives on 9/11 to an enemy that we had not yet recognized, but today abhor.

Daily, we thank them for their sacrifice, and resolve to let their lives stand for our resolve to face the enemy, to know his name, and to prevail. We stand today, strong and united, safer from terrorism than we have ever been.

Learn more about this author, Nita Tyson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.