Working out just now in front of MSNBC's real-time replay of NBC's live coverage on Sept. 11, 2001, I kept fighting off this inappropriate feeling of longing.

As the white-gray smoke drifted across the blue sky off the south tip of Manhattan that morning, Americans may not have known what was going wrong exactly or what was needed—remember, people sent millions of dollars to the Red Cross, which didn't know what to do with it?—but we all agreed that there was a problem and that it was urgent.

People often allow nostalgia to creep into their voice when they remember the JFK funeral, and even Pearl Harbor.

It was terrible; but we were going through it together, and we remember that sense of comfort, too.