| Twenty-five years.
A quarter century has passed since the morning of September 11, 2001, and yet for so many of us, it still feels like yesterday. We remember exactly where we were when we heard the news, watched the towers fall, and understood that the world had changed in an instant.
Today we honor the 343 firefighters, 37 Port Authority police officers, 23 NYPD officers, and 8 EMS personnel who ran into danger while everyone else was running out. We remember the nearly 3,000 innocent lives lost that day, and the countless service members who later carried that loss into battle, many giving everything to protect this country in the years that followed.
Twenty-five years ago, strangers became family in a single morning. First responders, neighbors, and total strangers reached for one another in the middle of the worst day many of us have ever known, and in that reaching, this community and this country found its footing again.
A new generation has grown up only knowing 9/11 as history, not memory. That is exactly why we carry this story forward, every year, so the courage of that day is never reduced to a date on a calendar.
Take a moment today. Say a prayer, visit a memorial, hug the people you love a little tighter. And if you see a firefighter, police officer, EMT, or paramedic, thank them. Twenty-five years later, their calling still asks the same of them that it did that morning: to run toward what everyone else runs from.
We will never forget. |
