Never Forget

The one thing I can't shake, as we remember 9/11, is that so very much was lost on that day.

While it's important to look forward and commend the resilience of the spouses and the children, we simply can not forget how much they lost. How much was taken away from them. They were "stolen" from their families, as President Bush said today at Shanksville.

Stolen, they were. And we know by whom. No matter where they are, whatever plots they continue to concoct, they will "hear from all of us soon," as President Bush said 10 years ago atop a crushed fire truck amid the smoldering ashes and dirt-streaked faces at the World Trade Center site.

When I heard the voice from the cockpit recording of AA Flight 11 the other day -- Mohamed Atta -- yelling in English, for everyone to sit down, telling them he was turning the plane, I shuddered in disgust. How dare he? I was angry, again. And I was glad that I was angry.

We must move on, we must rebuild, but we need to remember our anger at what they stole. And what they want to continue to steal. We cannot, will not let them have anymore. So much has already been taken. Our precious friends.

So very much was lost. For the 12 families in my hometown in New Jersey. For the firefighters, police and Port Authority families. For the Cantor Fitzgerald families. The Sandler O'Neill families. For the families of those that boarded the planes. And for so many, many others.

One mother said, I'm just so sad that he didn't get to live his life.

Well put. Sweet life. Stolen. Never to be returned. So keep a part of you angry. For what Atta and the others stole from all of us. Including the feeling of safety. Gone. And so we fight, in Afghanistan and in counter-terrorism around the globe. And so we fight.

So much was lost for so many. And we will never forget what we lost.