There are times when words don’t come easily. In the blackest days of our history, we see events so unspeakably bad that the pursuit of objective commentary, the articulation of the reasonable position, the construction of the well-argued response all prove elusive.

September 11, 2001 was such a day.

What does one say after seeing a Boeing 767 slam into the side of 110-story building? What measured, impersonal language does one use to express the emotion one feels when a place where 50,000 people used to go to work every day collapses in a pile of rubble?

I do not know.

In the coming days, people more experienced and knowledgeable than I will speak at great length about what caused such tremendous evil to assail us, and what we must do to keep it from ever happening again. There will be assignments of blame, calls for retaliation and—God willing—swift and fierce justice. We will hear talk of bolstering national defense, we will debate how to do it, and, in the end, we will emerge stronger than before.

But I leave those discussions for tomorrow. Right now I wish to write what I felt as a single American, like any other, who watched the greatest American tragedy in decades unfold on national television.

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