My wife, Suzanne, and I lost our firstborn son, Robert David Peraza, in the World Trade Center terrorist attack three years ago today, on Sept. 11, 2001. Rob was a vibrant 30-year-old who had a whole life ahead. People talk about closure, but there is never closure. You just have to march ahead because there is a life to be lived and other children and grandchildren to live for.

REMEMBERING 9/11

• How our lives have changed • Security funding builds center here • Citizen involvement is terrorism defense • Al-Qaida video mined for clues • 3 years later, parents to recite names • A list of memorial events EDITORIAL PAGE • Securing the homeland 3 years later • Clinton might have stopped 9/11 attacks • Letters: Are we safer three years later?

I intend to dedicate the rest of my life to fight terrorism, both foreign and domestic. I have read the 9/11 commission report from cover to cover and have a library of about 30 books on terrorism. I recommend that all should read the commission's executive summary, a well-balanced and thorough document.

The commission report deals extensively on the country's lack of preparation against a terrorist attack. On Page 348, it states: "We must then ask when the U.S. government had reasonable opportunities to mobilize the country for major action against al-Qaida and its Afghan sanctuary. The main opportunities came after the new information the U.S. government received in 1996-97, after the embassy bombings of August 1998, after the discoveries of the Jordanian and Ressam plots in late 1999, and after the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000."

I hold former President Clinton responsible for the nation's lack of preparation against terrorism before Sept. 11, 2001. We had received 10 terrorist attacks, foreign and domestic, since the World Trade Center basement attack of 1993. Osama bin Laden issued two fatwas (declarations of war in 1996 and 1998) against us. And what did Clinton do? Fight terrorism as a law-enforcement issue. Clinton's plan at one time was to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the U.S. for trial. The ACLU would have had a field day if that happened.

Clinton should have given an Oval Office talk or used a State of the Union message to bring the nation to fight against terrorism in 1998 or 1999. Presidents make awesome decisions while in office. Clinton was concerned about terrorism, no doubt about that. But he fought it from the Oval Office with his people. He never brought the country to a state of war. Perhaps 9/11 may never have been prevented. But, in my judgment, we could have been more ready against it.

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Robert Peraza of Mason, a Procter & Gamble retiree and president of Cincinnati's Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, is the father of Robert David Peraza, who was working on the 104th floor of 1 World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

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