This Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the violence that took nearly 3,000 lives in less than two hours during an orchestrated terrorist attack carried out in New York City, Washington, D.C., and ultimately Shanksville, PA, when the passengers of UA Flight 93 acted heroically to take control of the fourth plane targeting the US Capitol building, causing it to crash into a vacant Pennsylvania field.
For most of us who remember that fateful day, our lives were shaken to their cores. We witnessed horrific events not experienced in our homeland since Pearl Harbor in 1941. Chaos, panic, disbelief, outrage, confusion, and an eerie stillness filled the air as we waited to see what was happening and what might happen next.
The skies fell silent as all air traffic was immediately suspended. Only the sounds of fighter jets patrolling the air could be heard along one of the busiest flight corridors in the country. The news feeds repeatedly showed the large airliners striking the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There was nothing else to watch for days. We watched in real time that sunny September morning as the iconic New York twin towers collapsed in on themselves from the intense heat. We saw the headquarters of our American military engulfed in smoke and flames. We watched footage of thousands of terrified citizens scrambling to evacuate New York City on foot across the island’s bridges. We wondered about our friends and loved ones in and around the terrorists’ targets while overwhelmed networks rendered cellular phones useless. And we saw with our own eyes the inspiring bravery of first responders running into burning buildings to attempt to save others, knowing they would not make it out alive themselves. We stood in shock, yelled in anger, trembled with fear, wept in grief, and prayed in earnest.
We, as individuals, as well as the nation and the world, churned and changed that day. Not only did a new era in our history regarding the war on terror emerge, but radical Islam showed the world both its violent intentions and terrorist capabilities to strike organized blows against the United States and her allies. That reality rattled our sense of safety and security—both nationally and personally. Families held each other. Some people bought guns while others made out wills. Political leaders became heroes; young men and women enlisted in the armed forces. Songs were written. Movies were made. The nation was unified for a time, and politics took a back seat to statesmanship and patriotism. We swore we would never again take life, safety, and freedom for granted. We steeled ourselves and our nerves to accept the hard reality that evil exists in the world and that violence can, and did, visit us—and might again. We committed ourselves and the nation to do all we could to ensure such a day never took place in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. In all of this, we vowed never to forget.
But time is an enemy of memory and commitment. We forget by virtue of its passing and by virtue of our desire to avoid memories of fear and uncertainty that make us feel weak and vulnerable. We grow numb, complacent, and even indifferent, often telling ourselves we have learned from the past and must let go of it. 25 years later, we have a generation of American schoolchildren, many of whom learn about Islamophobia but are never told about 9/11. The images and stories have been sometimes buried, the details sometimes stricken from our memories, the narratives often retold, the cast of characters reimagined, the ideological violence and hatred that gave birth to those attacks wished away, or even justified. For some, memorializing the 9/11 attacks is a manifestation of insensitivity to other cultures and nations at best and outright intolerant and Islamophobic at worst. We look for a more passive path free from judging the ideologies of those who would do us harm.
And so, in our avoidance of the facts and the memories they conjure, we forget the lives and losses of the victims of those attacks; so too are the blood and sacrifice of those who have kept us safe since then at home and abroad forgotten. Cultural and political tensions that pervade our nation and, indeed, the world today leave little room for shared remembrance of one of the most significant events in our history. Unfortunately, the decision whether to commemorate 9/11 is one more issue over which Americans divide themselves. But what does that say about us? How does that bode for our future? Our children’s futures? The world?
Remembering and memorializing are very human things. They are essential to preserving our culture and our shared understanding of this world, as well as our shared values and convictions about morality and justice. They inform and shape our judgments and the actions required to apply that morality and sense of justice in real life. The inability or unwillingness to reflect and remember can often lead us to indifference and apathy, or naivety and the erosion of our commitments. It erodes our will to reject and challenge harmful ideas with which we fundamentally disagree. To believe in liberty and human potential, in freedom and justice; to hold to the value of human life and property; to maintain order and Western civilization requires us to be honest in acknowledging when they have been threatened. Forgetting has consequences. So, let us remember. Let us pause and give the events of 9/11 their due, which is our humble silence and sincere reflection.
