On the ninth anniversary, let us not forget...

On September 11, 2001, the New York City Police Department lost 23 officers who died trying to save others in the World Trade Center.

Often overlooked is the fact that the New York/New Jersey Port Authority lost 37 of theirs.

Memorial to the Thirty-Seven.

They could probably all have made it to safety, but like their brothers in the New York City Police and Fire Departments, they ran back into those towers to save other people. It's that instinct to put the safety of other first that makes a cop or a firefighter...and sometimes that instinct costs them their lives. But on September 11, 60 police officers gave up their lives so that other might live, as did 343 Firefighters.

Let us never forget.


Let us also recall how the Saudi murderers drew no distinction among their victims.

The victims at the Pentagon crash site ranged from Asia Cottom, a schoolgirl just 11 years old, to 69 year old Retired Master Sergeant Max Beilke, a veteran of Korea and the last soldier out of Vietnam.


In fact, the dead included 8 children: 5 on American 77 ranging in age from 3 to 11, 3 on United 175 ages 2, 3, and 4. The youngest victim was a 2 year-old child on Flight 175, the oldest an 82 year-old passenger on Flight 11. In the buildings, the youngest victim was 17 and the oldest was 79. The dead were men and women, Black, White, Asian and Hispanic, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and Atheist alike. The overwhelming majority were Americans, but the citizens of over 90 countries were ultimately represented among the dead. Our enemy didn't care about any of this, however. Our enemy saw their victims not as men, women, or children, not as black or white, but simply as Americans. They attacked us indiscriminately as Americans, and when this is over it will be as Americans that we will have ultimately triumphed over their kind.