It has taken a long time for this milestone to be reached, but the new One World Trade Center tower finally rose above the Empire State Building on its way to soaring higher than its predecessor(s).
In a very interesting coincidence, the building reached its current height just a day before the one-year anniversary of the death of the leader who brought the previous towers down.
I can remember that eerily peaceful sunny Tuesday in September 2001 as though it were yesterday. I was a senior in high school. My girlfriend came over a bit earlier than she normally did and told me to “turn on the news.”
We watched in horror as the South Tower fell, only to be followed shortly after by the North Tower.
It seemed like everything I knew would be coming to an end that day. School was a blur of sullen, shocked teachers and scared classmates. There were a lot of tears shed that day.
I wrote in my notebook “A Second Day Which Will Live in Infamy.”
I thought for sure the life I had known, full of friends, music and fun, would be traded for a gun, a unit, and a foreign battlefield as the result of a war and a reinstated draft.
Within a few weeks, I saw that obviously would not be the case.
In the years since that Tuesday, the world changed immensely. Terrorist attacks took place in London and Madrid, among other places that are less well known. We are still dealing with the effects of two wars and a seemingly never-ending “war on terror.”
And then, one year ago we learned the man who dared to attack our country in such an egregiously bold way was killed in a raid that was as calculated and daring as the one he financed.
Life resumed relatively quickly following those attacks, as pop culture returned and gave us all a necessary distraction.
When workers at One World Trade Center bolted that new steel column into place Monday, it was yet another way that the U.S. has moved on after 9/11.
While it will never replace the Twin Towers that stood very near where it now stands, One World Trade Center will forever represent American resiliency and that can-do spirit that has embodied this nation for generations.
There are so many awful legacies as a result of those attacks: wars, a slumping economy, the Transportation Security Administration, an ever-increasing trillion-dollar deficit.
That steel tower represents the hope that the U.S. can move on.
While things may never be as they once were, I hope we can one day dial down the seemingly intense security a bit and enjoy more freedom. Freedom is what makes this country truly great. The more we allow the demons of the past to rule us, the worse off we are.
I”m not saying I”m in favor of eliminating security restrictions everywhere. I”m not an idiot. I know we need protections to ensure another large-scale attack won”t happen without some resistance.
But I”m tired of living in a paranoid country. It”s time to move on.
I look forward to the day I can visit the Sept. 11 Memorial and new One World Trade Center in Manhattan and pay my respects to all those thousands who were lost that day. I hope that I can look down and feel sorrow and then look to the sky and feel joy. Only then will I truly know what it means to be an American.
Kevin N. Hume can be reached at kevin.n.hume@gmail.com or call directly 263-5636 ext. 14. Follow on Twitter: @KevinNHume.
