09/11/2026
Twenty-five years ago today, the 4.4 million men and women we now call post-9/11 veterans were living very different lives. Some were already adults, and watched the towers fall knowing almost immediately that their lives were about to change. Many of them walked into a recruiter's office within days or weeks, certain of exactly what they were signing up for. Others were children. Some were in elementary school. A few hadn't been born yet. They watched the attacks on television, or heard about them from a parent, or grew up in a country that was already at war before they understood what that meant, and joined years later anyway.
Two different starting points. The same choice.
For the ones who enlisted in that first raw season after the attacks, the choice was made in a moment of national grief and resolve, when the whole country seemed to be looking in the same direction. For the ones who came of age later, there was no such moment to carry them. The unity of September 2001 had long since given way to two grinding wars and a divided country arguing about both. They joined anyway, deliberately, year after year, knowing exactly what they were signing up for because by then the cost was no longer theoretical. It had a name, and a casualty count, and a face in their own hometown.
Both went to Afghanistan. Both went to Iraq. Many went to both, and some went to places the public never heard much about at all. They gave years of their lives, and too many gave everything, to a mission that began on a single terrible morning twenty-five years ago today.
The Delaware Veterans and Military Families Caucus honors every one of them, whichever door they walked through to get there. To every post-9/11 veteran in Delaware and beyond: thank you for serving, and know that we honor you for what it cost you and your families.
