Opinion : The night the fireworks cried

Fireworks descend in honor of the 10th anniversary of 9/11

I hope, wherever Osama bin Laden was on Saturday night, they interrupted his eternal torment for a few minutes to let him watch as Vinton residents saw the first commemoration of the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

The Iowa Pyrotechnic Association was not trying to be the first to mark the 10th anniversary of that dreadful day; they simply happened to move their event to August, and just a couple of weeks before Sept. 11. 2011.

But because of what the IPA did, Vinton can, indeed, boast that we had the first 10-year commemoration of 9/11.

If you were in the grandstands that night, you heard it for sure. You probably even heard it if you were sitting or walking around the fairgrounds.

But in the middle of all of the booming, there was a relatively quiet moment toward the middle of the fireworks show where the music, and even the fireworks, were a bit muffled.

While the song "Hero" by Enrique Iglesia played, the fireworks that lit up the sky did so with less noise than usual. For a while, all we saw in the sky were fireworks that seemed to form the shape of teardrops as we remembered the horror of that day and the thousands of people who died.

Iglesia had sung "Hero," in September of 2001 in New York City, at the first public concert following 9/11. The "Tribute to Heroes" event took place on Sept. 21 of that year. "Hero," although written before the event, became one of our country's 9/11 anthems.

Iowans heard that song again, in Vinton, last Saturday night:

"I will be your hero baby.. I can kiss away the pain....I will stand by you forever..."

I was on the track at the time, sitting near the start-finish line. I put the camera on the ground and tried to take pictures, but there is no way a photo could capture what the audience felt as we each, in our own way, remembered.

As I watched the fireworks, I thought of the now-deceased bin Laden, and how his attacks on America a decade ago did not result in the defeat he hoped for. With all of its problems (and yeah, we've got some), America remains free.

I know, I know: It's a cliché. But it's true.

Even though the "war on terror" continues in Afghanistan and Iraq and in other places throughout the world, the fact that we gathered together the way we did on Saturday night shows that in all of the ways that matter most, we fought terrorism, and we won.

Thanks to the IPA for gently reminding us of this fact the best way they know how.

You can watch the video of "Hero" during Boomtown below; the 9/11 tribute comes about three minutes into the video.

[VIDEO]