Ten years gone, a world remade, a nation in decline. I'm inevitably reminded of the last century of the Roman Empire. Could we be at around, say, the middle of the 3rd century AD, when the Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of civil unrest, war, and economic depression, only to be rescued by a strongman, Diocletian? Only to fall to the barbarian hordes a century or so after that?

Idle speculation, for the most part. Nations fail and are redeemed, or not. This one will be. Remember and honor the fallen today.