We Should Never Forget

Part 1 in our special Patriot Day coverage

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was in a newspaper newsroom when life changed in an instant. I remember our publisher stepping in to say a plane had hit the first tower, and then returning moments later with the chilling words: “America is under attack.”

We all rushed from the conference room into the newsroom, gathering shoulder to shoulder around a small 13-inch television. Together, we watched history unfold in real time — images that none of us would ever forget.

I vividly remember the footage of people leaping from the windows of the Twin Towers, making an impossible choice as fire and smoke consumed the floors above them. I can still see firefighters and police officers covered in white dust and debris, helping people out of the buildings while others ran the opposite direction. These men and women didn’t hesitate. They charged back toward danger, many for the last time. Their courage is something we must never allow ourselves to forget.

In that moment, even as I watched the chaos on the screen, my thoughts turned immediately to my own family. I picked up the phone and called my husband to make sure our children were safe. He had already gone to pick them up from school and daycare — our daughter in first grade, our son still just a baby.

At that time, we lived near an Army base where nerve gas was stored. As the reports of other planes came in — the Pentagon struck, Flight 93 crashing into a field in Pennsylvania — we began to wonder if our own community could be a target. My husband and I talked through hurried options: should he and the kids travel south to my parents’ home? Would it even be safe to stay in place? Like so many families that day, we were weighing impossible questions while glued to the coverage, never sure what piece of news would come next.

What I did know was this: my family had to be together. That instinct — to hold close the ones we love — was one of the most universal reactions Americans had on 9/11. From crowded subways in New York City to classrooms in small towns, everyone knew that life as we understood it had just changed.

And it wasn’t just the images of that day that left a mark, but the stories that came afterward. Year after year, as anniversaries came and went, new stories emerged: the children who were in day care at the World Trade Center who grew up with a hole in their family, the babies who never knew the parent they lost. They remind us that 9/11 wasn’t only about the thousands who died that morning, but also about the generations who have lived without a parent, a spouse, or a loved one ever since.

For those of us who lived through it, the timeline of that morning is seared into our memories.

In less than two hours, our nation was forever altered.

And yet, alongside the fear, there was also resilience. In New York, strangers helped one another down stairwells. In Washington, D.C., first responders raced into the burning Pentagon. In the skies over Pennsylvania, ordinary passengers on Flight 93 became heroes, taking action that saved countless lives in the nation’s capital.

Even far from the attack sites, in places like the Highlands, communities rallied. People filled churches, blood banks, and city squares. Flags lined streets. Neighbors who had barely spoken came together to talk, to grieve, to pray. For a brief moment, we remembered what it meant to be united.

Today, twenty-four years later, we carry both the grief and the lessons of that day. We honor the lives lost. We remember the sacrifice of firefighters, police officers, and everyday citizens who put others first. And we hold on to the truth that freedom comes with a cost — one that too many families have paid since September 11, 2001.

There are images and sounds from that day that will never leave us — and maybe they shouldn’t. Because memory is what ensures that sacrifice is never wasted, and courage is never forgotten.

I was a young mother with two small children on 9/11. Today, they are grown. But I still think about the families whose sons and daughters never made it home that night, whose babies grew up without ever hearing a parent’s voice. That is why I believe so strongly that remembrance is not optional. It is a responsibility.

As we gather for memorial services, as children recite the Pledge of Allegiance, as bells toll at the exact times of the attacks, we are doing more than honoring the past. We are teaching the next generation what it means to be American — to stand together in tragedy, to defend freedom, and to never forget.

There are many things about September 11 that I wish I could erase from my mind. But there is one truth I will carry with me always, and it is the same truth I want to leave with you: We should never forget.

Remember - Be a light. Be Bright. Be Bold.