Editorial: 11 years after 9/11, America continues to rebuild and grow

Today marks the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by radical terrorists affiliated with the militant group Al Qaeda. On that day, two planes were flown into the Twin Towers in New York City, resulting in the deaths of more than 2,000 Americans and changing the skyline of one of our country’s greatest cities forever.

While nothing can make up for the tragic loss of life that was suffered in New York, in Washington, D.C., and aboard Flight 93 during these attacks, today Americans can take pride in the fact that our perseverance never waivered, in spite of everything. This is evidenced by the Freedom Tower, which stands, nearly complete after six years of construction, on the spot where the Twin Towers once stood – reclaiming the Manhattan skyline.


Scheduled to be finished in 2013, the tower will be the tallest building in the United States, standing at 1,776 feet, a number that represents year of American independence. However, the Freedom Tower is more than a new, 105-floor tourist attraction. It is a symbol of everything that we wouldn’t allow ourselves to lose. For all Americans affected by the events 11 years ago, the Freedom Tower was erected to both showcase how far our nation has come in the healing process and to send a message to those who think that they succeeded in breaking our spirit. Generations will look upon this building and recognize that it is a beacon for the perseverance and progress of our once-wounded nation.

On that fateful morning, a significant part of our skyline was taken from us. Today, we can say that, not only have we reclaimed our skyline, we have turned it into a monument to every value and belief that the villains of those highly orchestrated attacks tried to strip from us.

Eleven years is long enough for an entire generation of Americans to be born with no knowledge of the significance that those events had in changing the course of our nation’s history. The new Freedom Tower can act as a functioning monument, similar to the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans’ memorial or even the U.S. Capitol, which teach our youth about the great impact that past events have had on the way we view our nation today.

With the completion of the Freedom Tower, Americans prove to all the evil powers in the world that we cannot be broken; we can only be given an opportunity to rebuild for the better.