waystem93 blog

Seventeen years ago this week, the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 that went down in Somerset County, Pa., brought our country together — first in shock and disbelief, and soon after in grief, and then with a common purpose.

That purpose, while easily forgotten in a time of relative peace, was fresh in the minds of Americans in the days and weeks following 9/11. As President George W. Bush said in his Oct. 8, 2001, address to the nation, “Since Sept. 11, an entire generation of young Americans has gained new understanding of the value of freedom and its cost in duty and in sacrifice.”

Now, 17 years later, a lifetime for many young Americans, we look back on the cost of three wars — one in Afghanistan, which continues to this day; another in Iraq that officially came to an end in December 2011; and a third that takes place with the assistance of our allies whenever and wherever terrorists plot to dismantle the architecture of liberal democracy and claim innocent lives.

Since 9/11, the “cost in duty and in sacrifice” has been steep. As we wrote this Memorial Day, “More than 2.7 million Americans have deployed since 9/11 in support of the global war on terrorism, the longest war in our nation's history. And among them, close to 7,000 men and women in uniform have given their lives safeguarding democracy at home and abroad.”