I could post a diatribe about the significance of today’s date and the implications of what we’ve done right and what we’ve done wrong since the morning of September 11, 2001, but I suspect most of you know how I feel, and we all know how I hate repeating myself when it isn’t necessary.

In some ways we are safer than we were on that day and in others we are more at risk. I seriously doubt that we can ever really secure our society against those who value death more than life. Yet today, five years on, we still walk freely down our streets, still eat at the corner restaurants, and order our latte’s without abject fear of being blown to kingdom come for our trouble. Can it happen? Of course it can. It happens in Israel. It happened in England and Northern Ireland during the worst of the troubles. It happened in dozens of two-bit dictatorships over the years, too. But today, we are still free. We are still brave. And despite the best efforts of a madman bent on our destruction, we are still here.

To borrow a quote from President Reagan speaking at the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion: “We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.”