Nineteen committed people can change the world.

That is the frightening reality that we learned 23 years ago today, after Americans and the world watched as civilian airliners were used as piloted cruise missiles to rain terror in New York and Washington, D.C., and on the people who fought back aboard an airliner that crashed into a peaceful farm field east of Pittsburgh.

Sept. 11, 2001, is receding in time, but not in effect.

The world has accepted wars, seemingly without end. It has accepted that madmen bent on using violence as a political statement will forever be with us. The “war on terror” is not a war that is winnable in the sense that there can ever be a victory celebration, or a definitive event such as a Victory over Terror Day. There is no VT Day to join the VJ and VE days in World War II, nor can there be, for ending terror means ending evil ways in the minds of people who simply cannot tolerate others or opposing viewpoints.

Today is Patriot Day, and there will be flag ceremonies and memorials, speeches and remembrances. The hijacked airliners are locked into our memories — American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93 — as are the images of the Twin Towers collapsing, the Pentagon in flames and a peaceful area near Shanksville, Pa., that become a debris field.

We must never forget, however, that we also saw the best of America that day — first responders who never stopped trying to rescue those who were trapped in the World Trade Center, many of whom lost their lives, as well as the passengers of Flight 93, who had already heard about what was happening in New York and Washington and decided they would fight back –nearly regaining control of the hijacked Boeing 757 before it crashed.

Sadly, hatred still looms among people. Extremists on all sides of religious and political fences continue to push their doctrines. People who do not think beyond their own wants create controversies and move to the extremes to join those already there.

Sept. 11, 2001, was 23 years ago. But its lasting effect goes onward as generations of human beings who were alive that day cannot get beyond its memory, or the memory of the world as it was before that morning.

So much time has passed since that late-summer Tuesday, that children who were born right around then have graduated from college and are starting lives and families of their own. They have been voting for several years now and are making an impact on what our future will look like. Their children will be unaware of the day except through what others will tell them or what they will read.

It is up to those children to fashion lives not tainted by living through that day, and to change the way the world lives.

We remember, mourn, honor and reflect on this annual day of grim reminders that have been burned into our minds. And, while we will never forget Sept. 11, 2001, we must continue to look for hope in the years that lie ahead.