Never again will American schoolchildren stand in a playground and look up in innocent wonder at a passenger jet.

        The nation's innocence has come to an end. It's over. Gone. Dead.

        Death came around 9 a.m. Tuesday.

        And we saw it live on TV.

        America's innocence died in a highly orchestrated terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York with direct hits on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and our nation's psyche.

        Once more, America remembered the lesson of the Oklahoma City bombing: No one's safe. Nobody escapes unscathed.

        Tuesday's cowardly act has given the Woodstock generation — my generation — its Pearl Harbor. In case we ever wondered, now we know: Terrorists — foreign or domestic — don't give a squat about peace and love. Reality has set in. The world can be an ugly place. More innocence lost.

Live and direct

        This time the unthinkable was captured live and on national TV.

        We weren't gathered around the tube watching footage from some faraway place. Or film clips from a disaster movie.

        It wasn't on video. Or the History Channel.

        This atrocity unfolded on live TV. Death in the morning. Above the streets of New York.

        One after another, two planes slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. For the second impact, TV cameras caught the carnage as they trained their lens on the skyscraper — a symbol of America's economic might. The building exploded and bulged slightly before collapsing in front of the eyes of the nation.

        The image of that plane, dark as doom on its deadly flight path, will be seared forever into the national consciousness.

        This sight was as horrible to behold as grainy film of the USS Arizona blowing up 60 years ago in Pearl Harbor.

        The scene in New York was a site of cruel irony. Innocents sat on those planes. Innocents worked in those buildings. American airliners were used to kill Americans.

        Still more innocence lost.

Hope in the Harbor

        In the days to come, stories will be told about the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Acts of great courage will be mixed with tales of tragic heartbreak.

        On Tuesday, a TV reporter told how she saw a fireball heading her way in the wake of a tower's collapse. A fireman grabbed her, threw her face-first against a wall and shielded her from the flames with his body. She could feel his heartbeat on her back. Good thing. She lived to tell the story.

        An oft-repeated street scene showed a firefighter leading a businessman by the hand to safety.

        Neither the white fireman nor the black man in the suit and tie seemed to mind holding hands. They were just two Americans trying to stay alive.

        Another scene from the tragedy should also be fixed in America's memory. As smoke engulfed the towers of Manhattan, the harbor remained clear.

        On a nearby island, the Statue of Liberty watched in silence.

        Her torch still held high, she stood as a powerful reminder. America's innocence may be lost, but hope survives.

        Columnist Cliff Radel can be reached at 768-8379; fax 768-8340.

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