Community remembersSept. 11

Tomorrow, Americans will pay their respects to the men and women who died 13 years ago when passenger jets slammed into the World Trade Center twin towers and the Pentagon.

We will also pay our respects to the first-responders — the firemen and policemen — who risked their lives to save those trapped in the buildings. Many first-responders were successful in their attempts; others, unfortunately, also perished on that day which changed the way we conducted our day-to-day business.

Every year the city of Fallon conducts a ceremony at 10 a.m. to relive Sept. 11, 2001, and to remind Americans of what happened on that day. This year, Churchill County will honor the fire department on its birthday and as first-responders during an open house later in the day at the county’s administration building.

What followed 13 years ago, however, were two wars and thousands of more lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan in what was a Global War on Terror. During these wars, Naval Air Station Fallon and the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center continue to train carrier air wings here for their missions thousands of miles away. Likewise, thousands of Nevada National Guard soldiers and airmen answered the call to deploy overseas or at home.

The United States and many other countries on planet Earth still face the threat from those who would like to see us and our allies destroyed. Both President Obama and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have allowed the military to shrink to reflect this country’s dwindling involvement, first in Iraq and then Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the world is ablaze with Russian intervention in Ukraine, unrest in Africa, saber rattling from North Korea and threat from ISIS, the militant Islamic army that seeks our demise and wants to expand its terror-riddled influence around the world.

While the United States cannot continue to be the world policeman, neither can this government, much less this country sticks its head in the sand like an ostrich and pretend the bad guys will disappear.

Sadly, it took the beheadings of two Americans to wake up the country and remind us that the world is still not a safe place and that isolationism, which hurt this country between the two world wars and before the Korean War, will make the situation worse.

The president must show more courage and resolve as commander in chief, and Congress must also be more unified and bolder without regards to politics in assuring Americans that the battle against extremists such as ISIS must be taken to them.

Editorials written by the LVN Editorial Board appear on Wednesdays.