Ten years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, one might expect Americans to feel more fulfilled about our nation’s might and security. In that time our military has driven al-Qaida and its hosts from power in Afghanistan. Our nation has prevented further attacks on American soil. And yet, as some stories we’ve published here of late reveal, many everyday Americans feel no real closure, even in the death of al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden at the hands of a U.S. special forces team this year.

It’s enough to give the terrorists at least some satisfaction from their darkened lairs around the world.

Today many Americans feel a sense of dread and anxiety, knowing that life changed forever on Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaida hijacked American airliners and turned them into manned missiles that toppled buildings, took nearly 3,000 lives and thrust U.S. citizens into a new and terrifying world. After conducting two wars costly in lives and treasury, we remain utterly uncertain about the world we live in and our place in it.

American history offers few clues to understanding such elusive closure. The last conflagration in which we were attacked on the homefront — World War II — drew to a very definitive end, strikingly preserved in the images of photographers and now stamped on the American memory: the explosion of an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japanese officials humbly submitting to terms of unconditional surrender before Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square on V-J Day.

The genius of al-Qaida is that it’s not confined to a population or land mass. It is a radical movement that infects the Muslim world and our own. Its leaders believe in the destruction of the Western World as well as moderate Muslims wherever they live. Those leaders believe in the concept of martyrdom — at least when practiced by ignorant and obedient followers.

Worse, many Americans these days seem resolved to the destruction of their own neighbors. We have devolved to the point of looking down on Middle Eastern countries for the rampant tribalism that precludes cohesive, functional government, then look the other way as our own society continues to fragment, even as we encourage strife and hate for leaders dependent on whether one has an “R” or “D” behind his or her name.

Nor can we claim anything approaching the “Greatest Generation” tag given to an earlier generation. We are unable to confront many pressing issues of our time. Many of us went along complacently as our leaders pressed our military personnel into two wars while asking next to nothing in sacrifice from we the people back home — something inconveniently symbolized by the Bush tax cuts that amazingly still exist.

No other generation of Americans has ever gone to war while giving up virtually nothing. But we did.

A poignant example of how rare sacrifice is in our wartime society: In the Midway Independent School District this fall, Jordan Darling is attracting some attention, not only because of his prowess as a quarterback with the Midway Panthers but because his mom is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and is serving in Afghanistan.

Such examples of service are hardly commonplace today. It’s worth noting, too, that last month was the deadliest month for U.S. troops in the nearly 10-year-old war in Afghanistan.

So have we learned anything in the wake of 9/11? Most Americans would acknowledge we live in a new age. But as an increasingly divided people all too often driven by hate and hyperbole, we have yet to grapple completely with the complicated issues surrounding all this, including how prepared we are to compromise cherished rights to ensure our security, the wisdom of some wars over others and, of course, the very notion of national sacrifice.

Central Texans have had a front-row seat on some of these issues with President George W. Bush’s ranch 20 miles west of Waco and massive Fort Hood just down the road. We have witnessed the volatile anti-war protests (and counter-protests) in nearby Crawford in 2005 and what one might describe as a jihadist, homicidal rampage by an Army psychiatrist at Fort Hood in 2009. But have these incidents left us any better positioned than fellow Americans to understand the grim realities created by 9/11?

In short, are we up to the challenge issued by terrorists 10 years ago today beyond, say, putting up with certain indignities at airports? Who knows? Aside from the families who have seen sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives serve in perilous theaters of war far from home, except for law enforcement, emergency personnel and firefighters, the rest of us remain largely untested.

Perhaps when the bills come due for defense, national security, veterans health care and two wars, we will show our mettle. Till then, many Americans know only the horror and awe of 9/11 — and not the stuff of commitment and sacrifice that it will take to prevail in a struggle that may endure for decades.

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