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Does anyone remember Chandra Levy?

She was the California woman whose disappearance in the summer of 2001 led to a nationwide manhunt. Her father was on the national news, interviewed regularly in his driveway, commenting on how he hopes they find his daughter and thanking those involved in the search.

I don't mean to trivialize her death, but it was a slow news summer. Locally, Banner Health Systems had been awarded a certificate of need to build the Pahrump hospital.

The quiet news summer all changed the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

I'll remember the moment I heard about the World Trade Center attack as I remember where I was as a little boy when I heard about President Kennedy's assassination. I first heard about the terrorist incident when I was driving out of my home on Simkins Road in Pahrump. I had left the car radio on from the night before.

I was unable to put in a full day at the Pahrump Valley View. I wanted to get home late in the afternoon to watch television and find out all the latest details, like many Americans who were transfixed by the TV news that week. We kept watching the awful footage of the smoke billowing out of the top floors of the World Trade Center, the people running as the dust rumbled down the streets of New York City and firemen picking through the rubble afterwards.

It was the biggest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, which didn't occur on the American mainland.

It's amazing how the attitudes of the American people can change quickly in light of a disaster like that. It was a greater upwelling of patriotism than the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979, when Americans told the terrorists holding our hostages to let our people go and counted down the days they spent in captivity. American flags were selling like hotcakes.

Pahrump residents Barbara Thompson and Nancy Phillips quickly organized a candlelight ceremony on Highway 160 that night, in front of Albertson's Supermarket. Hundreds showed up to show their support, motorists drove by honking. It was uplifting to feel the spirit of the moment. People just felt they should do something in light of the catastrophe.

Preachers gave speeches in Petrack Park that weekend, trying to help people make sense of the tragedy.

For probably the first time, the National Football League games were canceled that weekend. That could've been a major reason the stands were packed at McCullough Arena for a bull riding competition that went on as scheduled that weekend. People needed an outlet from watching all the depressing news. The rodeo fans in the grandstand cheered as the announcer mentioned American warplanes were attacking Afghanistan.

Pahrump television station KPVM held a 24-hour telethon that raised over $25,000 for scholarships for the children of New York City firefighters killed in the rescue operation. It was a shining moment in the history of the TV station. Pahrump residents turned up to volunteer their time. I'm sure those children will receive plenty of donations.

The hundreds of New York City firefighters who died brought attention to the valiant work of firefighters everywhere, who are heroes for a living.

Locally, Pahrump firefighter John O'Brien made a trip to New York to deliver donations to the New York City fire department. Pahrump resident Ed Beaman, a member of a Clark County search and rescue team, helped emergency crews sift through the rubble at Ground Zero.

McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas was closed a few days, like airports everywhere in America. Everyone had to put up with increased security regulations afterwards. Las Vegas casinos suffered a major drop in business after the attacks, the stock markets plunged, continuing a downturn in the economy that began in late 2000.

President Bush became a hero for a speech he made after the attack, though I suspect any halfway decent president with a good speech writer could've emerged a hero. Americans took a major defeat and rallied to show our strength as the world's only remaining super power.

Despite the $25 million price tag on his head, the master mind of the attack, the head of al-Qaida, Osama Bin Laden, remains at large. It's hard to believe someone can hide from the cameras posted on satellites roaming in outer space and all the spies we have worldwide. At least we can know the weasel that planned this dastardly attack probably isn't able to walk freely in public, but he must enjoy considerable support from poor people in Pakistan or Afghanistan who could surely use the $25 million reward.

Dignitaries made speeches during a candlelight celebration to mark the first anniversary of the attack at the Calvada duck pond. Apparently there was a lack of interest this year in Pahrump, and no events were staged to commemorate the fifth anniversary.

When I interviewed Pahrump residents in front of the Smith's Food and Drug Store after the start of the Iraqi war in March 2003, many people tied that war to the fight against al-Qaida. But as the war grinds on in Iraq, the Bush administration now admits former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein didn't have any ties with al-Qaida.

On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Vice-President Dick Cheney boasted the administration's war on terror has prevented another 9/11 attack on America. I certainly hope America doesn't have to count its blessings having survived five years without a similar attack. While the war on Iraq has probably focused all the terrorists into attacking us in Iraq, the war may also be hardening the anti-American attitudes of many young, uneducated Moslems into becoming future terrorists.

I question why we weren't more alarmed after the attack on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania during the 1990s. That should've been more of a wake-up call that terrorists may attack us on American soil.

It ended up just being 19 terrorists armed only with box-cutters who conducted a major attack on the financial heart of America. Personally, I think we need a super-elite military squad to attack the terrorists wherever they may be, not entire military battalions going to war against entire nations. Let this elite military squad have the freedom to pursue the terrorists and do the right mission, as an American I don't want to even know about it.

Perhaps some day we can understand the mind set that led someone to plan such an attack of hatred on America. Supposedly Osama bin Laden was outraged American soldiers were stationed on sacred Saudi soil (we quietly removed troops from Saudi Arabia at the request of the government). He was also upset after the first Gulf war and he made much of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, described more as an afterthought to show sympathy to that cause.

Let's hope we never see a similar attack on American soil. God bless America.

By the way, the body of Chandra Levy was found a year after she disappeared, near a trail where the intern used to go jogging in Washington, D.C.