In recent days, with the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks drawing near, television, newspapers, and online outlets have been filled with memorials, reflections, and archival footage from that terrible morning. Many Americans have found themselves revisiting the videos and documentaries that tried to make sense of what happened in the years after. As we talked about how RedState would mark the anniversary, Sister Toldjah mentioned that she had been in Times Square that morning, and spoke about the survivor’s guilt she has carried ever since.
A few others said they didn’t really have a personal 9/11 story to tell, and that made me pause. Two of my closest friends were living in Manhattan on September 11 and have described to me the fear and chaos they experienced. Beyond them, I can think of at least a dozen people with some direct connection to that day: someone who was supposed to be at the World Trade Center but, by chance, was not; the child of an NYPD or FDNY member; a person working at the Pentagon; a spouse who had been scheduled to board Flight 93 but changed plans and took a later flight. Nearly everyone I have ever discussed it with seems to know someone whose life intersected directly with the attacks.
And in a broader sense, every one of us was affected by September 11 — and still is. The world shifted that day in ways that continue to shape our politics, our security, our culture, and our sense of normal life. It changed, and not for the better.
That is why I believe anyone old enough to remember 9/11 has a story worth preserving. As the years pass, fewer people remain who can say what they saw, what they felt, and what America was like before that morning. When living memory fades, conspiracy theories, revisionism, and outright denial have more room to grow. We have already seen attempts to minimize the attacks in Islamist propaganda and in comments such as Ilhan Omar’s infamous and dismissive “some people did something” remark. But firsthand accounts from people we know have a way of cutting through that fog. They make history harder to erase.
I have seen a similar dynamic in politics over the years, when people have tried to peddle their supposedly hidden knowledge about the Holocaust and claim it never happened. But I grew up hearing my grandmother talk about what my grandfather witnessed while serving in the Signal Corps with the Ninth Army during World War II. He came upon a concentration camp not long after its liberation, and the images — and especially the smell — never left him. Because that testimony came through my own family, from people I trusted, I have never had the slightest patience for Holocaust denial.
With that in mind, I want to share my own memories of the day that altered life as we knew it and ushered in what became 25 years of open conflict with Islamists — a war they had been waging long before many of us understood it. I was 29 then, working as a freelance court reporter in the Raleigh, North Carolina, area. I had two young sons: one was 7, and the other was 4, just weeks away from turning 5. That morning, I had been assigned to cover a special meeting of the North Carolina Utilities Commission dealing with cell phone towers. Because it was designed as a public comment forum for hundreds of industry workers, rather than a formal hearing, it was held in a conference room at NC State University instead of downtown Raleigh.
The session began early, before the first plane struck the World Trade Center. I remember one attendee arriving a little late and stepping up to the microphone. He apologized and explained that a small plane had reportedly hit the World Trade Center, and that his sister — I believe it was his sister — worked there and had called him, which delayed him. The meeting continued.
Roughly an hour later, that same man urgently interrupted the speaker at the microphone. This time, he told the room it had not been a small plane. A second jet had hit the other tower, the Pentagon had also been attacked, and all air travel across the United States had been grounded. Since the room was packed with people who had flown into Raleigh for the meeting, he wanted them to know immediately so they could begin figuring out how to get home.
The meeting broke so people could make phone calls. I found myself standing in the lobby alongside a group of big, rugged construction workers, all of us staring up at the televisions mounted near the ceiling, trying to understand the impossible. Then, as we watched, one of the towers collapsed. In front of me stood a man nearly a foot taller than I was, with a long blond ponytail — a small detail, but one that has stayed with me. Everyone gasped. Then the tears came. I saw them running down his face, too. All I could think was: How many people did we just watch die? How many mothers and fathers would never make it home?
I managed to slip into an office and call my then-husband, who had our 4-year-old, Jacob, with him at work. We owned a commercial office supply business, and on days when I had depositions or hearings, Jacob would spend the day at the store. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to go get him, pick up our older son, Spencer, from school, and hold them both for the rest of the day. But Spencer’s school was not yet allowing parents to pick up their children while officials tried to assess what was happening, and the meeting I was covering had not been formally dismissed, so I could not leave.
Not long afterward, the meeting was recessed indefinitely. I still do not know when, or even whether, it ever resumed. By the time I got near home, Spencer was already on the school bus heading back. The hugs I gave my boys that day were among the sweetest I have ever known. We did not spend the rest of the day cuddled in front of the television with them, though. We needed to follow the news, but we also wanted to shield them from the horrifying, violent images replaying over and over on the screen.
At the time, we lived about 20 miles from Fort Bragg, and many of the fathers at Spencer’s elementary school were active-duty military. Within weeks, most of those dads had deployed. The school community, however, made no effort to hide its patriotism. For more than a month after the attacks, a sign made from painted plastic cups remained on display — a simple, handmade tribute from a community still trying to absorb the shock of September 11.
We went to New York City right after Christmas that year, taking advantage of the low airfares and hotel prices to see the city at that time of year. We went down as close as we could get to Ground Zero to pay our respects to those who perished that day. The grief was still palpable throughout the city and especially in lower Manhattan. All day long, truck after truck left the site, each carrying just one steel beam. From the few vantage points from which we could see toward the rubble, and even though the fire was officially extinguished on December 20, we were able to see smoke still rising on December 26.
My youngest son was born in 2003. To him, September 11 has always been history. To me, it is the day I stood among strangers and watched thousands of Americans die as those towers fell, then wanted nothing more in the world than to get home and hold his brothers while mourning what the world lost. I won’t let him, or any of my grandchildren, forget.
Editor’s Note: The Democrats are doing everything in their power to undermine the integrity of our elections.
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