The real story of the year since September 11 is the shoe that never dropped. At home and abroad, everyone thought it would. In the first weeks after the attack, people were afraid to fly, to move. Yet the second blow never came. That does not mean it never will. But how many predicted that we would go a year unscathed? How many thought that sheer resolve, fearsome technology, heightened vigilance, brute force, and a dragnet stretching from Yemen to the Philippines would make the jihadists the hunted and give us a year of respite?

The respite will not last if we simply look back with satisfaction on our initial resilience. The respite will not last if we see September 11 as just the anniversary of a tragedy, a remembrance of the fallen, a celebration of a day of courage. It was all that, of course. But it was much more. It was the opening salvo of the Great War of the 21st century, against an enemy as barbaric as any faced during the 20th.

This September 11 marks not just a day of infamy, but the close of Year One of that war. And to win it we will need to demonstrate--as we did in the other great wars of necessity--patience, endurance, determination, and a willingness to bear any burden.