SEVENTEEN YEARS AFTER, WAR DOESN'T LET US FORGET

By Juan Montoya
I was in southwestern Minnesota getting ready for work the morning of 911 when I saw the burning South Tower on the television news and turned to my better half and said: "Either we choose to be in continual war from now on, or we reassess our foreign policy toward the Middle East. Otherwise, this isn't going to stop."

A little later, the second tower was hit and later, both tumbled to the ground burying thousands in the rubble.

Seventeen years later as we remember the anniversary of the attacks, it is apparent that we have chosen war as our future.

Our Middle East policy toward the Muslim world continues and our invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan have cost us blood and treasure and thousands of lives of innocent people in those countries.

We have hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden and decapitated the Al Quaida leadership. And we are engaged in our country's longest war in Afghanistan with no end in sight. Syria looms as another quagmire.

And what has it gotten us? Do you feel any safer? It seems that for every muslim we kill, another two or three rise to take their place. We are spending billions to lay waste to entire countries.

We still prop up monarchies that suppress their people for oil, regimes that deprive women of simple human rights, and "our friends" still continue to finance the movements of radicals against us.

That's what we chose and now we have to live with it until we regain our national collective sense. Our policies continue to nurture hatred against us among their young generations. Every wayward bomb we drop, or innocent person we kill as "collateral damage" waters this hatred.

However, it can't be said that this nation has not shown the resolve necessary to confront a determined enemy.

The USS New York was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.
It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It carries a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft. Construction started in 2004, a year after the World Trade Center attack.

Steel from the Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, La., to cast the ship's bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept 9, 2003, "those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence," recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there, to a newspaper reporter.

The New York Times reported that "The foundry workers reportedly treated it with "reverence usually accorded to religious relics," gently touching it as they walked by. One worker delayed his retirement after 40 years of working to be part of the project."

The story stated that "It was a spiritual moment for everybody there."

A local newspaper reported that Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the "hair on my neck stood up.

"It had a big meaning to it for all of us," he said. "They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back."

The ship's motto? "Never Forget."