I watched the attacks on the World Trade Center on a perfect blue September morning five years ago. As I watched the world change with my two young sons I thought that I didn’t want to be at war. I really wanted to deny the reality of that awful day and its consequences. Apparently many of my fellow citizens feel the same way. Denial may ultimately bring peace through appeasement and defeat, but I can’t recommend it.

On the first anniversary of Sept. 11 the University of Maine had an outdoor memorial assembly. For a variety of legal, political and practical reasons no such event has been held since. Many in the academic community detest the administration, the war and any mention of Sept. 11. Others have little appetite for internecine cultural warfare, preferring surface comity to difficult debate. Some of us are afraid.

But here we are. Sept. 11 happened. It changed the world, and our country as well. We are at war with a portion, hopefully a fairly small portion, of the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. If one in a hundred thousand is a fanatic jihadist, that’s a pool of 12,000 homicide bombers. That certain cultures are apparently glorifying such actions is even more disturbing.

Peace will come when we either win or lose the war. At the moment we’re losing, but we’d be in greater peril if we had accepted the 2001 status quo in the Middle East. If we want peace either the three large Persian Gulf regimes must change, or Israel must cease to exist. One Persian Gulf regime has been replaced, and another is developing nuclear weapons and flaunting the United Nations. Either that regime will succeed, eradicate Israel and win the war, or they will not.

After five years of war, the president has finally belatedly named the enemy. We are a nation at war, but also a nation at the mall. The president, in fact, urged us to go to the mall, and applauded us for doing so. But if we are to be a nation that wins this war, we cannot be a nation at the mall with no understanding and sharing of the costs of war.

For many Americans without family or close friends in the services, there is no real sacrifice … and without shared sacrifice, the war is not real, and not worth fighting. The president has sought to keep our economy strong, and it is hard to fault him for that. But a vibrant economy without unity of purpose will not win the day.

Five years ago Islamo-fascists attacked America, capitalism and freedom. Perhaps the war started in 2001, or 1492, or 14 centuries ago. I wish we weren’t at war, I’d much rather tend my garden and watch my children grow. But wishing won’t make it so.

Remembering Sept. 11 might.

Jon Reisman is a faculty member of the University of Maine at Machias.