Post to remind us

I wasn't going to post anything today, specifically to remember 9/11. There are plenty of people doing that, and I did my own remembering, and talked with some people about it. However, I just saw this article that Dave Barry (yes, the humor columnist) did on that very day. It's thoughtful, and this bit caught me.

The truth is that most Americans, until Tuesday, were only dimly aware of their existence, and posed no threat to them. But that doesn't matter to them; all that matters is that we're Americans. And so they used our own planes to kill us.

And then their supporters celebrated in the streets.
I'm not naive about my country. My country is definitely not always right;
my country has at times been terribly wrong. But I know this about
Americans: We don't set out to kill innocent people. We don't cheer when
innocent people die.

And it becomes more and more obvious to the people of Iraq that we aren't like the killers who Al Qaida or Saddam (when he was alive) paint us out to be. The longer our troops are over there, the more Americans like the one's Dave knows succeed in proving to the Iraqis that we're there to help, not occupy.
I'm proud to live in this country and call it home.