Editorial: On 9/11, we salute heroes and seek clarity

As the parade honoring three men who thwarted a French train gunman winds through downtown Sacramento on Friday, the nation takes sober satisfaction. Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler acted boldly in a very dangerous moment. Clearly, theirs was one battle the terrorists didn’t win.

But on this September 11, clarity is otherwise in short supply in this world, which has been upended by geopolitical fallout. Fourteen years after Osama bin Laden sent nearly 3,000 Americans to their deaths through a coordinated airline hijacking, we’re still reconciling the human toll and reeling from the after-effects of one of the greatest tragedies on our soil.

Two airliners hit the iconic World Trade Center twin towers, bringing both down in an hour or so, cascading to earth in a blue-gray ash plume. Millions of pieces of paper fluttered in the wind and drifted for miles around Ground Zero. Fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, friends and lovers frantically called loved ones for help, for solace, to say goodbye as the worst happened. Office workers leapt to their deaths to avoid being immolated, and hundreds of firefighters and police died trying to rescue the victims and escort thousands more to safety.

In Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon, an airliner slammed into the side of the Department of Defense headquarters and killed more than 100 people in an instant. Among the victims was Lemoore native Otis Vincent Tolbert, a naval intelligence officer and former Fresno State football player. Tolbert’s grave is in Arlington National Cemetery’s Section 64, along with others who perished in the attack.

In Shanksville, Pa., another plane, United Flight 93, bound for the U.S. Capitol was recaptured by its passengers, only to be flown into the green farmland below. All on board died, including Todd Morgan Beamer, who attended Fresno State in 1987. In 2010, our city dedicated a park to Beamer, the Todd Beamer Neighborhood Park in north Fresno.

The three Sacramentans – Stone, Skarlatos and Sadler – were 8 and 9 years old when these things happened. Yet 14 years later, the facts remain vivid. The wounds are still fresh, and the memory of those who were later to sent to fight and die or be grievously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan still haunt us. And our mission there is not accomplished. Far from it.

Syria is riven with ISIS terror threats, and millions have fled to Europe and elsewhere. The sister gulf states have done far too little to aid the refugees from their region.

Afghanistan and Iraq remain unstable. Iran is at the table pledging to halt its nuclear weapon production, and that’s a good start. But the rest of the region has so far failed to live up to the now-stale promise of an Arab Spring.

Our national debate about internal security and civil liberty is ongoing, and how we continue to respond continues to be at issue. September 11 consumed George W. Bush’s presidency, and only after the death of bin Laden did Americans begin to feel anything approaching a sense of justice.

So much pain, so little closure. So let us give thanks, at least, for the uncomplicated salute we can give from afar to the three young men riding in open cars in Sacramento.

This story was originally published September 10, 2015 at 8:17 AM with the headline "Editorial: On 9/11, we salute heroes and seek clarity."