I Will Not Forget

 

© 2001Thomas E. Franklin/The Bergen Record/AP

Copyright © 2026

By Ralph F. Couey

Written Content Only

25 years.

Yes, it's been that long.  A brilliant, sunny early autumn day throughout much of the United States mainland.  It was a primary election day in New York City, and local news focused mainly on the election and related events.  Everywhere else, it was just another workday.  People finished breakfast and after a quick goodbye, left their homes to head for their jobs.  Yes, people still did that back then.

It was a busy travel day.  At airports in Portland, Maine, Boston, Massachusetts, Newark, New Jersey, and the suburbs of Washington, DC, aircraft lifted off for their intended destinations.  It was by all appearances just another day.

Then, at 8:19 AM, Flight Attendant Betty Ong aboard American Flight 11 alerted American Airlines officials on the ground via airphone that a hijacking was underway and the cockpit was unreachable.  Five minutes later, a voice crackles through on the air control frequency.  It is the voice of Mohammed Atta telling passengers to stay in their seats and that there is a bomb aboard.  Confusion spreads across the circuit.  At 8:37 AM, Boston air controllers alert the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) to report the hijacking and request fighter aircraft.  NEADS was running an attack defense drill that day, and in a moment of confusion, sent the two F-15 Eagles out over the North Atlantic away from the threat.

Then the true horror of that day exploded onto the world.  At 8:46 AM, Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.  A chance video shot by a French documentarian accompanying New York City firefighters showed the gleaming airliner knifing into the building, followed by a horrible bloom of fire and smoke.  Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03 AM, United Flight 175 struck the South Tower.  At that moment, everyone- civilians, police, firefighters, and TV news teams- realized that for the first time since 1812, America was under attack.  

At 9:28 AM, hijackers aboard United Flight 93 attacked the flight crew of that aircraft and took control.  

At 9:37 AM, American Flight 77 screams in at literally ground level and slams into the Pentagon.  Eight minutes later, the FAA shuts down US airspace and orders all aircraft still in the air to land immediately.

At 9:57 AM, the passengers and surviving cabin staff of Flight 93 begin their counterattack against the hijackers.  Two minutes later, the South Tower, the second one hit, collapses.  At 10:02 AM, the passengers aboard Flight 93 breach the cockpit and try to regain control of the aircraft.  The hijackers flip the plane on its back, and it plows into a field near Shanksville, PA, less than 1.5 miles from an elementary school, full of children.

These are the key events of that day, as history has recorded them.  For those of us who were alive and aware, the shock and horror of the attacks remain fixed in our memory.  We know where we were, who we were with, and what we were doing when we heard the first reports.  Our response was so very American.  Threatened from without, we linked arms and, in a truly rare and beautiful time, stood together as one.  

9/11 changed us.  It changed us as a nation, and as individuals.  An outpouring of patriotic emotion swept us, united, into a new and darker world.

It's now 2026, a quarter-century since that day.  Over time, the raw emotions have faded, but a lot of Americans still carry the scar.  An entire generation has been born and raised in this post 9/11 world, and seeing the expressions shared on social media and other means has begun to separate Americans into two distinct groups: those for whom that day was a memory, and those who only know it as a page in a history book.  

That day, we vowed never to forget, and yet so many of us have forgotten.  Not the event per se, but the powerful emotions we felt.  This was not some distant, disconnected event.  This was personal.  

For a time, I was involved on the periphery of the effort to establish the permanent Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania.  I was able to meet family members of the passengers and crew, and hear, in their words, what that day and the subsequent commemorations meant to them- a powerful, personal testimony from people who, so unfairly, were forced to bear their grief in public.

Image copyright © 2011

by Ralph F. Couey

We may hear many discordant voices this day, those who say that America deserved what happened, or those who still insist that the whole thing was somehow concocted.  These are new voices, whose words are intended to hurt, to anger, to once again tear open that wound.  And painfully, there are others who will hear those words, and believe.

I'm not sure how to feel.  I know I will never forget that day.  I know I will always mourn with those whose loved ones were lost.  I know I will forever know how that day changed us, and the world.  Remembering that day is not only about the attacks.  It is also about the human stories that came out of that dark day; stories of courage and sacrifice.  Stories of strangers assisting each other, saving lives in the process.  The first responders who, in the first moments of horror, went into the danger without hesitation.  

But mainly, I will remember those days when we truly stood united as one, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm...heart to heart.  Americans were proudly defiant.  Those were heady days, when we turned towards each other, instead of away.  That unity brought us forward, into acts for each other, strangers reaching out for each other.  The world noted that while America could be attacked, it could not be defeated.

“When Americans lend a hand to one another, nothing is impossible. We’re not about what happened on 9/11. We’re about what happened on 9/12.” ―Jeff Parness

Sadly, that didn't last.  People in positions of power and influence- government, the media, and others- who sensed only a political opportunity, struck and struck hard.  They had a vested, in many cases, financial interest in keeping us divided and in a permanent state of anger and hate.  Those voices have only gotten louder over the years.  And I fear that today, on a day some of us still remember what 9/11 truly was, the voices of unity may be drowned out by the dividers.

I could be wrong, and I hope I am.  

I cannot speak for anyone else.  But today, I WILL remember.  And I will honor the memories of the lost and their loved ones.  I will dig deep to rediscover the unity and pride that overflowed throughout the United States.  That is my duty as an American.  

And as an American, I choose to stand in the light of honor.