A pillar of smoke reaching to the heavens.

Expressions of shock and disbelief on the faces of onlookers.

Stunned silence from officials and controllers.

All eyes riveted upon images of death and destruction.
 

Images.

        Repeated.

                Over.

                        And over.
 

We watch in fascinated horror as the moment of disaster plays again on the screen "for those just joining us," unable to tear ourselves away.

We hug our children and grope for words to explain the thing to which their innocence has been subjected until we realize that our presence is what they need more than anything else.

Although the distance dilutes the flames, our hearts cry as our spirits penetrate the conflagration that hides the human toll from our eyes.

Involuntary prayers follow the smoke on its upward climb, seeking to protect the souls borne heavenward on its billows.

Our pride.  Our confidence.  Our humanity.

Shattered.

In a moment.

In the twinkling of an eye.

Tuesday... under a clear blue sky.

The day the Challenger fell.
 
 

Journalist Forrest Sawyer had once called it "the most televised disaster of our time."

If only...
 
 

Another Tuesday... another clear blue sky.
 

Twin towers of glass and steel.

Each taller than the Titanic was long.

Twin pillars of Hercules.

Reaching to heaven itself.
 
 

Twin towers of humanity.

Twin targets of unspeakable evil.
 
 

A wayward airplane.

Then another.

Twin engines of wanton destruction.

Dead on target.
 
 

Again, the smoke.  Again, the horror.  Again, the images.
 

Images.

        Repeated.

                Over.

                        And over.
 

Again, we watch.  Again, we cry.  Again, we pray.
 

Our pride.  Our confidence.  Our humanity.

Shattered.

In a moment.

In the twinkling of an eye.

Tuesday... under a clear blue sky.

The day the towers fell.
 

Once again, we all know the answer to, "Where were you when...?"
 

In forced communion, we imagine the terror of those trapped within the heart of the nightmare.

Within the heart of darkness.

The confusion.  The uncertainty.

The fear.  The pain.

The choice.

Fall or burn.

For some... perhaps for most... the
choice is made for them.
 

Icarus, at least, had wings.
 

As when Challenger fell, we reach out to our loved ones.  We seek to make sense of the insanity.  We search out some sliver of good and hope from the ruin and wreckage before us.

But it's difficult... because it's different.

Challenger was an accident waiting to happen... one that some anticipated, one that some tried to prevent.

But no one deliberately brought down the Challenger.
 

September 11th was different.
 

September 11th was not merely an attack on America, an attack on the government, an attack on policy.

September 11th was an attack on civilization, an attack on the rule of law, an attack on humanity itself.

It was an attack on all of us... on each of us... no matter our nationality, our ethnicity, our creed or our color.
 

The question now is, how will we respond?
 

The Challenger crew embodied the best of humanity.

September 11th's terrorists embodied the worst of humanity.

Will we now respond with the best... or the worst... of ourselves?
 
 

Welcome to the war.

The gauntlet has been thrown.

The rubicon has been crossed.

The former things have passed away.

Tuesday... under a clear blue sky.