Taking a Moment to Remember

Like the day President Kennedy was assassinated, everyone remembers where they were seven years ago this morning.

Bill was at anchor in New York Harbor, under the Verazzano Narrows Bridge, watching the smoke from the towers. He called me on a borrowed cell phone to tell me, "We're at war, I just don't know with whom."

In the days that followed this despicable attack, countless stories of courage and heroism surfaced. It was intensely personal for me: While flipping through the channels a few nights later, I heard a familiar voice. When I clicked back to Larry King's show, there was a friend of mine from college, someone I hadn't seen in 25 years. Mike Hingson and I were co-workers at the campus radio station in Irvine, California. He was working in the WTC when the first plane hit the other tower, and they were told to stay put. But Mike's seeing-eye dog knew better, and by her behavior, convinced Mike and his colleagues that they needed to evacuate. That dog led Mike and his friends down 80 flights of stairs, and they survived.

To my dismay, it seems to me that Americans have forgotten that day. Maybe they just want to forget, because the spectre of living with the fact that fanatics want to kill us all is just too horrible to contemplate. Today we will remember Shankesville, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center "tragedies." Tomorrow, everyone will go back to their normal lives, and forget that these were willful atrocities. But we must not ever forget that those responsible for 9/11/2001 continue to live only for the opportunity to make it happen again.