17 years.
It's still hard to believe.
And then I remember that brilliant blue sky, suddenly forever stained by that plume of smoke rising from the World Trade Center.
Seventeen years later, we are a changed nation.
We now take off our shoes in order to board an airplane.
We routinely have our bags searched when entering large events.
We remain on guard, all too aware that America is no longer immune to a terrorist attack.
The proof lies in the lack of those two towers in Manhattan.
Along the wall of the Pentagon.
And in a field in western Pennsylvania.
Ironically, there is a Delco connection in Shanksville, where United Flight 92 slammed into the ground when the passengers and crew decided to take action to take back the plane from hijackers who were intent on delivering it as a massive bomb in Washington, D.C.
The shepherd of that sacred ground is a Delaware County native.
We talked to Stephen Clark, a 33-year veteran of the National Parks Service and current superintendent of the National Parks of Western Pennsylvania, including the 2,200-acre Flight 93 Memorial Park.
Clark is a Delaware County native, the son of longtime Philadelphia Daily News reporter Joe Clark.
He will lead the ceremonies at the Flight 93 Memorial today that will be attended by President Donald Trump. It also will serve as the official unveiling of the Tower of Voices, a 93-foot-high tower that will note 40 chimes - one for each life lost on 9/11.
One of those voices belonged to another Delaware County native. Deborah Jacobs Welsh was a flight attendant on United Flight 93.
You can read our story here.
And our editorial on what this day means here.
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