RELIVING 9/11

9/11 has once more come & gone; 15 of them in all, but I still remember the events of that fateful day, as if it had happened yesterday.

I was out since early morning, hammering in white pebbles into the meter wide path to the letter box. It was the last bit of work left in the landscaping of my 1-in-a-trillion daughter's pretty bungalow in Athens, Georgia, USA, built on a near 1 acre parcel of land, with steep slopes on two sides. 

It was nearly 9 when I came back indoors and  after washing up, flopped on a sofa. I switched the TV on, changed to CNN and OMG, what do I and my wife see, happening live in front of our eyes!!!

A huge plane crashing into the 110 story Tower 2 (South) at the World Trade Center, Lower Manhattan, NY, and saw it  crumble like a house of cards before we could have said Jack Robbins. Tower 1, (North), also of 110 story, had already been destroyed, minutes ago. The two towers were spread over an area of over 14.5 Acres. The news of Pentagon attack and of the downing of another plane, headed for Washington DC, when it was deliberately crashed by its pilot in an open field of Stonycreek Township, followed soon after. 

In a matter of minutes, the well coordinated assault on the mightiest power on Earth, was over, leaving thousands of innocents dead, much larger numbers injured and a total cost to the Nation of around US$ 3 Trillion.

This was a dastardly act by a bunch of cowards, propped by an despicably insane man, hiding like a rat in his bill in the mountains of Af - Pak border, & his terrorist organisation called 'Al Qaeda'.

It was not just the physical destruction caused by those rats, scheming from their hell holes; a mighty Nation's pride had been ground to dust, before they could even wholly understand the enormity of it all. It was akin to the sly manner of cutting-off the manes of the legendary Samson.

A soldier of India, today, still remembers and salutes the indomitable spirit of America, which rose as one, without petty recriminations, to face the challenge before  the Nation and finally came out on top through relentless, single minded pursuit of the culprits, hunting them down, fishing each of them  out of their rat holes and bringing them to justice.

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. America must persevere with its policy of unceasing vigil on its borders and inland too, to ensure that never again do these scums of humanity get another opportunity to re-enact another horror story on its soil, even if it means going to the end of the world to hunt and destroy the terrorists.

We as a Nation have some thing to learn and imbibe.