09/11/2026
Twenty-five Years . . .
Posted 09/11/2026, 8:00 AM
I picked up the phone that morning while trying to get ready for work:
“Jim, hey, are you watching TV?”
“Yeah, cartoons if you’re taking a survey. Why?”
“Switch to the news,” he said, “we’re under attack.”
I did - and we were.
I had been scheduled to conduct some presentations in schools that morning (earthquake safety, I think), but that schedule went out the window.
I watched TV in absolute disbelief as an airliner slammed into a building - and then watched it happen again, and again. I had been in both New York City and Washington DC earlier that Summer, and so these places were very fresh in my mind. I had walked on that sidewalk; I had driven down that road.
I heard a TV announcer saying something like, “We’ve had reports that one of the towers has collapsed” while the collapse of that tower was being shown on live TV.
I remember standing in a parking lot with colleagues that afternoon, long after all flights had been grounded. Looking up, we saw the thin white streak of a contrail from a high-altitude jet and someone in the crowd said, “Oh my God, here they come again.”
I remember first responders heading toward the scenes, fully aware of the risks they were taking and likely fearful, as were many of us, of a follow-up attack, and the deep respect I felt (and still feel) for the courage it took - and takes - to do that.
I later spoke with a crisis counselor who had spent time with Ground Zero firefighters. She told me about a young, unmarried firefighter who was struggling with his own survival while so many of his colleagues who had families had perished. She was crying when she said she didn’t really have an answer for him - I didn’t have an answer for her, either.
I remember wanting to honor the lives of the people we lost that day, and the lives of the people we continue to lose because of that day, and I remember vowing to never forget.
If you’d also like to honor those people, please feel free to share a memory here. What were you doing that morning, 25 years ago? Another way to do that is to simply reach out and shake the hand of the next Paramedic, EMT, firefighter, law enforcement officer, or dispatcher you encounter. You don’t have to say a word - they’ll understand.
Photo credit: AP
