Today marks the thirteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Since the attacks themselves, many Americans have vacillated over how to commemorate the events that killed roughly 3,000 people and inflicted billions of dollars in damages. Just as important, the consequences of these events have had a global reach and affected innumerable people. In this sense, the war on terror, which includes the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and ongoing operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, was a direct consequence of 9/11. Any discussion of those events is bound to elicit emotional responses, particularly as the attacks are relatively recent.