Last Saturday marked the third anniversary of what many rightly consider America’s 21st century day of infamy – Sept. 11, 2001.

On that Tuesday morning three years ago, radical Islamic terrorists took the lives of nearly 3,000 people – mostly civilians – by crashing jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Another jumbo jet went down in a field in Pennsylvania, the terrorists’ plans apparently thwarted by the actions of some brave passengers.

There were, of course, tributes, memorials and remembrances that one would expect to mark such a momentous event.

To my mind, however, there was something missing, not just on Saturday, but in general: graphic footage of that horrible day. Images of the planes smashing into the Twin Towers, people jumping to their deaths rather than perishing in the jet fuel-fed fires that ensued and the buildings collapsing have for the most part been exorcised from the mainstream media.

It almost goes without saying that this conspicuous absence is not because the press is overly concerned about the delicate sensibilities of the American public.

Without speculating as to the cause of this situation, Americans need to be reminded in an explicit way why this country is at war with fanatical Islamic terrorists.

At the very least, perhaps, revisiting the realities of Sept. 11, 2001, could help us all recollect why and how we came together as a nation that day and shortly thereafter.

Sad to say, but that might be the best we can hope for during a politically divisive presidential election year that has seen some put their manic obsession with ousting President Bush above national security.

Images of America’s first day of infamy – the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 – are readily available on a regular basis so that we never forget what happened that terrible day. We should do no less regarding Sept. 11, 2001, and the war we currently find ourselves fighting.

“My Two Cents” is a weekly column where the author – who still feels a twinge of anger whenever he catches a glimpse of the Twin Towers in reruns of television shows – gets in his two cents worth, in spite of the old saying that you only get a penny for your thoughts.