Americans have acquired the habit of describing themselves using hyphens: Italian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, African- Americans, Irish-Americans, Mexican-Americans and so on. But on the morning of Sept. 11 our enemies defined us simply as Americans.

Regardless of ethnicity or color or religion or political persuasion, they killed us simply because we are Americans. Their hatred of us didn’t recognize those subtle hyphenated differences we have grown accustomed to applying to ourselves. And on that terrible Tuesday morning, we let slip those nuances as we became one.

We are now simply Americans – supporting each other, helping each other and resolving to make right the offense exacted on us all.

We cannot be as we were before the morning of Sept. 11. Our sense of security – almost complacency – is gone now. In its place will be a hovering apprehension similar to that we had at heightened periods of the Cold War.

We are forever changed. Our decade of lightheartedness is over. Future historians will look at the period that began with the end of Soviet communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall – that promised “peace dividends,” disarmament, free trade, open borders, a new economic model, and endless prosperity – and mark its end on the morning of Sept. 11.

How did this happen? In some ways, it was our very lightheartedness that was the problem. In the late 1970s, the federal government began hollowing out our intelligence services. Enamored with high-tech surveillance, we phased-out much of our on-the-ground intelligence operations. During the 1980s, President Reagan’s CIA Director Bill Casey beefed-up our foreign intelligence operations but these were aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and the terrorist operations it financed.

After the end of Soviet communism, our government failed to build an on-the-ground intelligence operation to counter this new threat of terrorism – terrorism which is carried out in the name of Islam but is certainly a perverted form of this religion.

Throughout the 1990s, our government seems to have operated on the assumption that it would not happen here. As terrorists grew more sophisticated, the ability to monitor them all but disappeared – and we were unprepared for what happened that Tuesday morning.

So the long-term response to this vicious attack must include a commitment to rebuild our on-the-ground intelligence capability. This, coupled with the necessary changes to the security regimen for America’s flights, would go a long way toward eliminating the threat of a repeat of Sept. 11.

However, we shouldn’t make the mistake of expecting the next attack against America to look like this one. If it emerges that this attack was carried out with the logistical and financial support of another nation, then we cannot rule out future attacks using biological or nuclear devices. Just as we cannot rule out the possibility that the next attack will use a more sophisticated delivery system.

So an important part of our response must include an effort to deploy and continuously upgrade a strategic defense shield to monitor, warn against, and then shoot down potential threats to the territory and people of the United States of America. The time for quarreling about this is over. Congress must quit second-guessing science and put its faith in technology because the alternative would be to leave us open to an attack more catastrophic than the one we suffered on Sept. 11.

Once the enemy is found, he must be made incapable of ever striking America again. If that enemy is a nation, that nation must be defeated and its rulers punished. If that enemy is an organization of individuals, then the nation or nations that harbor them must be made – at the point of a bayonet if necessary – to arrest them and send them to us for punishment.

Finally, we – as Americans – should unite behind President Bush, in whatever immediate response he determines. We have come together in prayer, song and moments of silence as we mourn the loss of life that occurred in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. We must continue this spirit of unity and resolve for not just days or weeks, but for the long months and years to come as America ends permanently such attacks on our nation and its citizens.

God bless America.

Dick Campbell of Orrington is a candidate in the Republican primary of the 2nd Congressional District race.