So what do we do now?

Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar

The somber first anniversary of the invasion has come and gone.
I tried not to think about it but I failed; there was a mood at work that indicated without words that everyone was aware of it. One of my friends basically watched TV with her boss all day at work. One of my favorite radio stations seemed to be completely off the air during the morning drive.

I visited a couple of Web sites. Questions. Lots of questions. What do we do with the site? Charlie pointed out that turning the former WTC site into a park is like making a scar that will never heal. As much as anything, the WTC represented the American way of life. That’s why bin Laden and his thugs wanted it down.

There needs to be a memorial, yes. Rebuild the WTC. Put a plaque on the outside. That’s the memorial. A defiant demonstration of the American way of life. Inside, put plaques in appropriate places telling stories of acts of bravery that happened on that site.

But when we remember this act of cowardice, we need to remember even more loudly the act of bravery that a handful of people on board Flight 93 committed. The largest Sept. 11 memorial needs to be in the field in Shanksville, Penn., where Flight 93 crashed after the passengers and crew took the plane back from the hands of the hijackers. President Bush made the painful decision to take lives in the air to preserve lives on the ground, but the passengers made those orders unnecessary.

They need to be remembered with something along the lines of the Iwo Jima memorial.

And we need to start wrapping things up. Every time we take away more freedoms in the name of safety, we help bin Laden to erode our way of life, which is exactly what he wanted to do in the first place.

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