Published in Pawtucket Times on September 17, 2001

Using hijacked plans as deadly weapons, terrorists have brought death and destruction to the shores of our nation. Not since the American Civil War has this nation seen bombed out buildings or civilian causalities in its cities and towns. The United States may never be the same again.

Television has brought the horrors of a terrorist war up close to the American public, states 75-year-old World War II veteran Owen Mahony. In that war the nation was never directly hit, except Pear

l Harbor, he said.  The former Rhode Island assistant director of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals and former executive director of the United Way Organization in Rome and Niagara Falls, New York, saw extensive military action oversees from 1943 to 1946.

“During World War II civilians had little and no direct awareness of what was happening to the soldiers in the battlefields,” says Mahony, a long-time Warwick resident. “Of course, my family in Woonsocket lived through gasoline and food rationing. Those suffering the death of a loved one would signal this with a flag with a gold star, hung from their window,” he said.

The veteran of the Normandy D-Day landing saw a lot of terrible things in battle that his family did not   experience, Mahony told All About Seniors.  “They could look at the battles in the Pacific and Atlantic from afar,” he said, adding that at this time Americans really had little fear that the mainline would be attacked.

Today, it is a different world, Mahony quipped. “Everybody has either seen or visited the World Trad Center or the Pentagon. Or maybe they have flown on American or United Airlines,” he added. But through television, the vivid images of the horrific bloody acts of terrorism in New York City and Washington, DC, the way we view our world will forever change. “The terrorist war is here.”

Mahony, the father of 12 children, a grandparent to 29 very young grandchildren, many of whom are elementary school age, notes that it is most difficult to make sense of last week’s terrorist attack. With such a large family, he was on the phone for six hours tracking all his family down to make sure they were safe. “I was like the center of the communication hub, bringing the latest information so that everyone knew each other was safe.”

Meanwhile, some of his adult children took their youngsters out of school immediately after the attack so they could pray for those who lost loved ones. Throughout the evening, Mahony’s family and circle of friends, from their respective homes, offered prayers of Thanksgiving for those who made it safety out of the bombed-out Pentagon or World Trade Center, or to those who died and to their surviving loved ones.

“The biggest problem my children had was how to interpret their young children what is going on,” Mahoney stated, noting that several of his grandchildren were upset and crying at what they saw during the intensive news coverage. “How do you explain to young children how the hate of a terrorist brings the individual to plow a plane into a building.”

“The surprise attack will bring out the best of our people,” Mahony predicts, just like it did after Pearl Harbor.” Millions of other Americans are bringing comfort to their children and grandchildren, assuring them that even with evil people willing to kill innocent strangers for a fanatical cause, most people are good, he says. “We all know that love absolutely subdues evil.”