I hope when my children hear about America’s worst day, the textbooks and teachers will be referring to this, because this is hard enough to explain to them.

I can’t imagine anything being harder.

That day, off in the future, when my children ask me where I was when the sky fell, I’ll hand them a copy of the Collegian from that day, and tell them, “Daddy was a reporter.”

Not a student reporter.

Not a reporter for a college paper.

Just a reporter, with no modifiers.

Reporters aren’t supposed to feel. My friend Melissa put it best when she said our position doesn’t allow us to express our opinions, and that’s the only thing that saved me. Being able to not feel, to not contemplate the sheer fact that thousands of Americans have been blinked out of existence was best. It was shock, pure and simple, but having a goal, a story to complete, a fellow writer to argue with, let me think about other things. My mind wasn’t in New York, amidst the pile of rubble that had been the World Trade Center Towers. My mind was in the Campus Center Basement, and although I talked to frightened and stressed people in Boston, New York, Arlington, and Washington DC, I was in the Joe Friday/reporter mode. Just the facts.

But although we are not supposed to feel, one of the drawbacks to being a reporter is that you are human, and you do feel. So once my story, my task, my goal, was finished I was left with nothing but the reality that Americans were dead at the hands of terrorists.

I still didn’t believe it. I’m not sure I do now, almost a week later. I felt like I was living through a Tom Clancy novel, or that at anytime I would wake up and it would be over, I’d go to class, and everything would be alright.

It shocking to feel the effects of terrorism. We have for so long been protected by two oceans and have been lulled into thinking that we can’t be touched. Well, we’re touchable. And that’s what terrorism is. It’s a war unlike any other. For so long I have thought about terrorism in a strange way. The Ulster Defense Force were terrorists, the IRA were soldiers. To me, before 9-11, terrorists were the bad guys. Now I realize that anyone who tries to influence government policy through – and this is the crucial part – illegal acts of violence is wrong. The IRA, as much as I support their ideological beliefs, are terrorists just as much as the UDF.

Bin Laden and his cronies have a beef with the US for some reason. OK, he’s got a right to his opinion. Just as whoever – and I’m not saying it is him, but all signs are pointing that way – crashed the planes had a right to theirs. And I’m not talking US Constitution. I’m talking basic human rights. What they did not have the right to do is kill people.

This attack has been described as the second Pearl Harbor. That’s a wrong estimation. Pearl Harbor was a military installation, attacked by the military might of a sovereign nation. This was an attack on civilians by civilians. This is mass murder. And, if, as is coming to light, it was conducted in the name of God, then I don’t know what to do.

So now terror is the official enemy of the United States, and we’ll be combating it in a long drawn out campaign designed to do shatter the networks of terror. We must not “retaliate”. Revenge is not the key here. We must, however, exact justice. If we kill innocents, we are no better than terrorists. Turning the other cheek will not do in this case. Those responsible and those hiding them have declared war not only on the United States but on the spirit of democracy and human decency. But our response should be just and well measured, else we fall into the same despicable category as our enemies.

To preserve our peace, we must, as the quote goes, prepare for war. The form that war will take has yet to be defined. Nobody has ever declared war on one man, or a handful of people.

I hope that in this wave of patriotism, we remember that those that came before us died so that we could ALL be free. And that goes for anybody visiting our country. Don’t blame your neighbors because they speak with an accent or “look” a certain way. Don’t turn against one another. If someone has a different opinion, they can express it, and we should all listen. Although you may not share that opinion, if we silence them we sully the honorable deaths of the heroes and innocents with a dark stain of intolerance.

We must remember that there will always be a tomorrow. There will be a future, and the course of action that we choose today will shape the way that future is going to be.

I do want to think about the future. Last week has been described as the worst day in American history and I hope it is. I remember a few other days as the worst in American history. The first one came in 1986, when the Challenger exploded in front of me and the rest of my first grade class. The next came years later, when a bomb shook the World Trade Center. Then a bomb ripped through the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Then there was an attack on United States embassies. Then came an attack against a naval ship, the Cole.

All of them were described as the worst day in American history. I pray that this latest attack, with its death toll in the thousands, is the WORST. That there will be no more days where the entire nation mourns, and a world where there will be no terror.

I hope I can look back on this dark time, and that when my kids look up at after reading the yellowed, dry issue from September 12, that we all realize how truly wonderful this country and this people are. The generosity and outpouring of relief from all sectors has proven that we can make it through this time and any other crisis. We are resolute. We are stubborn. We do not give up. We are Americans.

Ken Campbell is a Collegian Columnist.