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Sarasota News Leader April 19, 2013 OPINION of heroism, as spectators and first responders immediately set about caring for the victims, disregarding their own peril; as runners who had completed the course reportedly continued running to the hospital to give blood; or as dozens of Bostonians opened their homes to race participants needing meals or a place to spend the night. Page 67 ourselves with the steadfast belief that certain justice might act as a deterrent in the future. Sometimes that retribution is swift, as in the quick apprehension and punishment of the Oklahoma City bombers. Sometimes it comes after years of effort, as in the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan almost 10 years after the destruction of the World Trade Centers and the attack on the Pentagon. With the villains brought to account, the inevitability of retribution provides us with a sense of closure for events that we will never forget. For those of us viewing photographs and videos of the attack and its aftermath, images of this courageous corps provide an enduring affirmation of, as Abraham Lincoln termed it, "the better angels of our nature." Before the smoke cleared on Monday, memOur collective awe at those on the scene who bers of the law enforcement community alrisked their lives to help the victims, and our ready were launching an investigation into sympathy for the victims and their families, what happened and who was responsible. In does not blunt the incipient rage at yet anoth- the hours that followed, the scope of that iner affront to a freedom all hold dear — free- vestigation widened to include officials at the local, state and federal level. The combined dom from fear. might of that investigative effort will provide In every earlier example of an attack on in- us all with explanations of the who, how and nocent civilians, whether by a lone perpetra- why, even if the answers do not not come tor or a malevolent organization, we all have quickly. suffered a loss of our sense of security. The blissful innocence of never contemplating an The tragedy that likely will become known attack is the precious thing first stolen from as the Boston Marathon Bombing has been us in the aftermath of a massacre. It is tragi- etched in the national consciousness, its imcally the bell that can never be un-rung in the pact a permanent part of how we think of ourselves and the world around us. But in the national psyche. courage of those who responded heroically To salve our anxiety and sorrow, we look to in the first moments, in the stoicism of the the exposing of those responsible for the at- survivors and victims' families and in the dedtacks, and the reasons for it. In the identifica- ication and zeal of those who seek the identition of the killers, and their eventual punish- fication and punishment of the offenders, we ment for the crime, we regain a small sense of find the greatest measure of ourselves. And control over the uncontrollable. We console we find hope. %