Where were you on 9/11?  For my generation, it is undoubtedly the one moment in time that will collectively bind us together for the rest of our lives.

Ten years ago today, I was standing in front of the Pentagon.  Ten years. But it might as well have been yesterday.  The sights, sounds and smells are still burned in my mind as if it were yesterday: a giant black column of smoke billowing from the Pentagon following the crash of American Airlines Flight #77.  The sound of absolute silence, followed by thousands of screaming people running from the world's largest office building. The smell of burning jet fuel. The tears and prayers of a woman as she is carried out by her colleagues.  An Army officer stumbling towards, covered in white dust, breathless as he recounted how the ceiling caved in on him as he sat at his desk. A total of 2,977 victims were killed on 9/11, incuding 125 at the Pentagon and 59 on American Airlines flight #77. 

Less than a month after the attacks, I found myself aboard the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, covering the U.S. bombing campaign on Afghanistan as an embedded journalist.  

Ten years later, we remind the world that we are still here.  Despite two wars, several terrorist attemps, and often divisive and heated domestic politics, we are still here. At the end of the day, we are all Americans. Today we remind the terrorists and their sympathizers that they failed. The United States of America remains, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Photo: The World Trade Center, as photographed by Mr. Crab during a high school class trip to New York City.