I was four years old when the attack of 9/11 took place. I remember it briefly but our country remembers it like it was yesterday. The pain and sorrow is still in all of our hearts. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth is in the Bible, but so is turn the other cheek. Can’t we do both? Can’t we have compassion and have revenge while still being American? The song God Bless the USA says, “Cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can’t take that away.” Have they already?

The article Killing Evil Doesn’t Make us Evil, in the New York Times by Maureen Dowd states, “I don’t want closure. There is no closure after tragedy.” I believe this is true. We will never have closure. What the attackers did to us is unforgettable. A tragedy. For me personally, I will never have closure. That’s what the terrorists want, to bring terror. They want us to stay home and be scared.

But we can’t just stop living our lives. Yes, I will always be scared- scared to go in an airport or on a plane, and yes, when they destroyed those towers they destroyed the country’s peace of mind, but that doesn’t mean we will give up and stay home. That’s not what it means to be an American.

I, along with others, want the ones in charge of all the attacks to be punished. There are always groups who talk about bombing, and then there are groups who will try. They are the ones the government watches out for. But the US should not do the same by bombing citizens who did not have anything to do with the attack.

In the article, Justice not Revenge, is her Motive, New York Times by Clyde Hberman it states, “I’m not an idiot, I want to see justice, punish the guilty. But don’t punish the innocent.” In some third world countries the people have no voice; they are dictatorships, Authoritarian societies. The people in those countries are already being punished because they have no say in how their life goes. In my eyes we need to have justice, but not take revenge on innocent bystanders as terrorists did to us. Later on in her article Dowd says, “[the Navy Seals] carried two young girls out of harms way before killing Osama.” This is just one example of punishing the guilty, (Osama Bin Laden), yet saving two innocent girls.

We obviously should not turn the other cheek and let attacks happen. We all need to remember 9/11 and protect our country so it won’t happen again. We must never let our guard down. Thanks to passengers of United flight 93 the terrorists didn’t win completely. They bound together to take back the plane, causing the plane to crash into a field, not the capital.

So many heroes go unrecognized. We thank you. America is not all about football and fast food, it’s about freedom and people coming together and being one.  Ms. Lucznkowska, a citizen interviewed in Justice not Revenge, is her Motive, also says, “Revenge is useless if you don’t uphold your own principles. What good is it to punish someone if you are not punishing them justly? That’s what America is all about.”

Those terrorists cost us millions of dollars for repairs, but one thing money can’t rebuild is the long lost relationships that were demolished with the loved ones who lost their lives on 9/11. We shall stand together and honor those who help save our country. We want justice for the country, and for the world.