Happy Anniversary

It's September 11th.  And with the rise of Isis, people are more nervous than they've been on this date in years. The question--is this a bad thing?

I can still recall the weeks after the original 9/11.  Everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I flew to the Midwest in October that year and I remember the grim feeling at the airport.  Everyone was looking at each other--will this be the flight they choose?

We couldn't know then, of course, that the terrorists had temporarily shot their bolt. (And maybe they hadn't. Maybe it was anti-terrorist measures that made the difference.) For some time the country was on edge.  On the first anniversary of the date, people wondered if there'd be a follow-up.

It's certainly not good for a country to be on the verge of hysteria every year.  The question then becomes, with terrorists who would attack us every day if they could, and would glory in the deaths of Americans, are we too complacent.  I don't think so, but that's just what you say before the big attack comes, isn't it?

I don't expect for anything big to happen today.  If there's any happy thought I can conjure up, it's that If someone told me on September 12, 2001, that for the next 13 years nothing close to comparable to what just happened will happen again in the U.S., I'd have been happy.