25th Anniversary of 9-11

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the deadliest terror attack in history. Nearly 3,000 people were murdered on Sept 11, 2001, and many more died and/or continue to suffer from the toxic aftermath and the recovery efforts that followed.

Those of us who are old enough to remember that fateful day know exactly where we were and what we were doing on that September morning 25 years ago. Many of us are still mourning our lost friends and loved ones. While airline and travel safety restrictions have evolved, we lament the loss of a more peaceful worldview that we may have held before 9-11.

Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

–George Santayana

As the years go by, an increasing number of Americans were either not born yet or are too young to remember the events of 9-11 first-hand. We owe it to them and to our future to continue to tell our stories and remember our past.

This year’s 25th anniversary of 9-11 coincides with the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, marking the start of a new year and commemorating the start of the universe. In Jewish tradition, the new year is celebrated with reflection and repentence, as well as intention-setting and a call to do better in the year to come. The overlap of these two occassions seems to present a fitting moment for reflection and remembrance.

In honor and memory of those who were killed on 9-11-2001, we invite you to read our previous posts if you have not already done so about remembering 9-11, my friend Melissa Doi and my experience working at the World Trade Center during the 1993 bombing. We also invite you to engage in actively remembering 9-11 by visiting the 9/11 Memorial and Museum if you have the opportunity, or by reading narratives of the heroic first responders that day, like this one from The Atlantic Magazine, and by listening to survivor accounts such as this one from Keating Crown, one of just 18 people to have survived from his location in the South Tower.