09/11/2026
September 11, 2001 πΊπΈποΈπΊπΈποΈπΊπΈποΈ
It began like an ordinary Tuesday morning.
At 7:59 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 departed Boston for Los Angeles.
At 8:15 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 followed.
At 8:20 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 departed Washington Dulles.
At 8:42 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93 departed Newark.
Four airplanes. Hundreds of ordinary people. Thousands more beginning another ordinary day at work.
Then, in a matter of minutes, America changed forever.
8:46 a.m. β Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
9:03 a.m. β Flight 175 struck the South Tower.
9:37 a.m. β Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.
9:59 a.m. β The South Tower collapsed.
Meanwhile, aboard Flight 93, passengers learned what was happening elsewhere. At approximately 9:57 a.m., they fought back.
10:03 a.m. β Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Everyone aboard was killed, but their actions prevented the aircraft from reaching its intended target.
10:28 a.m. β The North Tower collapsed.
By afternoon, the New York skyline was almost unrecognizable. The World Trade Center towers that had stood over Manhattan were gone. Smoke covered Lower Manhattan. The Pentagon had been attacked. A quiet field in Pennsylvania had become sacred ground.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed.
But the timeline alone cannot tell the story.
It cannot capture the people trapped above the impact zones. The phone calls to husbands, wives, parents and children. The firefighters climbing stairwells while thousands of others were trying to escape. The police officers, paramedics and ordinary strangers who ran toward danger. The passengers of Flight 93 who knew what had happened and decided to fight back.
It cannot capture the photographs that would soon appear on walls and fences asking, βHave you seen this person?β
It cannot capture the families waiting for someone who would never come home.
Twenty-five years later, the photographs still stop me.
The Twin Towers standing peacefully against a blue New York sky.
Then the smoke.
Then the empty space where they once stood.
For an entire generation, there is a world before September 11, 2001, and a world after it.
May we remember the innocent lives taken.
May we remember those who ran toward the danger when every instinct told them to run away.
May we remember the families who carried a lifetime of grief from that morning forward.
And may September 11 never become simply another date in a history book.
We remember.