Ten years after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, the effects of Sept. 11, 2001 are still being felt.
They're felt in the memories of people like local relief volunteer Bill Bird and journalist Pam McCall who witnessed the attacks and their aftermath firsthand.
They're felt in the grief of the family, friends and loved ones of the 2,977 people who died that day. Ten years can dull the pain, but cannot fill the void left in their lives.
They're felt by the firefighters, police, paramedics and emergency responders who lost 411 brothers and sisters in arms.
They're felt by the soldiers, sailors and air personnel who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq - wars that happened directly or indirectly as a result of the 9/11 attacks.
They're felt by the families, friends and loved ones of Cpl. Darren Fitzpatrick, Cpl. Matthew McCully and the 155 other Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan so far. In total 2,706 NATO soldiers have gone to Afghanistan and not returned.
They're felt by the ordinary Afghanis and Iraqi people who have lost their lives, livelihoods and homes because of an attack they had nothing to do with.
They're felt by air travellers every time they have to pass through full-body scans, hand over their toothpaste, show their passport at the U.S. border or have their luggage rifled through by security.
They're felt by taxpayers who have paid approximately $18.5 billion for Canada's mission in Afghanistan and likely millions or billions more in increased security and intelligence spending.
On Sept. 14, 2001 Prince George columnist and reporter Gordon Hoekstra said the attacks prove the world is smaller than we think.
"Even though New York City and Washington, D.C., are more than 5,000 kilometres from Prince George, and in every real sense worlds apart - in magnitude, economic clout, cultural impact, political and military power, and in symbolism - they seemed less than a heartbeat away, less than an arm's length away, in the aftermath of the attacks," Hoekstra wrote. "Too close even."
Ten years later, those words are still true.
Every person in Prince George has been affected in some way by the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. It was the defining moment of a decade.
It was an act of politically-motivated evil - the mass murder of civilians to make a statement about American foreign policy in the Middle East. For good or ill, it was the single most influential event of the past decade.
It brought out both the best and the worst in people - courage and paranoia, compassion and bigotry, self-sacrifice and militant nationalism.
One can only wonder if Osama bin Laden could have foreseen the chain of events the Sept. 11 attacks would cause - including the overthrow of the Taliban, scattering of Al-Qaeda and his own death in a Pakistani compound on May 2 - if he still would have sponsored the attacks.
Regardless, Sept. 11, 2011 is a good day to grieve, heal and then close the page on this decade of history. The mastermind of the attack, Bin Laden, has been killed and the families of the victims can have some closure.
The decade of Sept. 11 can finally be laid to rest.
May it rest in peace.
-- Prince George Citizen
