Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Our mettle is tested

Thursday, Sept. 13, 2001 | 8:42 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

OUR WORLD has changed forever. Are we ready for that change?

I went to Los Angeles for a meeting and to visit family this past Monday. I awoke Tuesday to join a world full of stunned witnesses to the horrific carnage at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Tuesday brought the kind of news that many of us dreaded because we knew it was just a matter of time before it would come. Friends of ours -- we who live so far away from ground zero -- died on that awful day. Thousands of others -- those who we did not know but who have families and friends who will miss them -- will forever be indelible on the mind of a deeply wounded nation.

The message has come home loud and clear. This was an attack on America and an assault on each and every one of us.

The question remains: What will we do to resolve that this will never again happen in the United States or any other freedom-loving and life-respecting country?

That question caused me to hearken back to a conversation I had with my father when preparing to leave home for college in Washington, D.C.

His message was one of both concern and elation. He told me that my generation -- we were in the midst of forming the great generation gap, which resulted from the growing, and divisive anger over the Vietnam War -- had yet to be tested.

He referred to the twin steeling events of the Great Depression and World War II. Those historic moments shaped what Tom Brokaw calls the "Greatest Generation" because they tested the mettle of every man, woman and child and found the steel-like foundation of America to be solid.

His concern was that my generation had not been tested, the firmness of our resolve, as yet, unknown. His elation stemmed from the same place. No parent would wish for a depression or a war to befall his children just to see if they can make the grade.

For years I have remembered his words and often repeated them to younger people in an effort to help them better understand the real strength and sacrifice that defined the generation before mine.

Today we all face that defining moment, that time all parents' hope never comes into the lives of their children. We are at that time and this was the event that will test the mettle of our generation.

For most of us it will just be a matter of inconvenience. Longer lines at airports, greater restrictions at public events and a heightened presence of police and, perhaps, military power.

For others, for those American families who have lost loved ones who did what they were supposed to do -- go to work on Tuesday -- they have already been tested and not been found wanting in the least.

For our leadership, the real test comes with the recognition that our world has changed and the rules are different and the rightness of reason no longer carries the day. For our leaders, the steeling event has occurred and they must find the resolve to fight this war to the end. It is an end that will most certainly produce collateral damage and gut-wrenching pictures, but one that must be fought if we are to continue to be a country that cherishes freedom and provides security for ourselves and our friends.

It is an end that will test not only ours but the mettle of those who wish to call us friend.