September 11, 2001: Twenty-Five Years Later, We Remember

Twenty-five years ago this morning, the United States changed in the span of 102 minutes.

At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. At 9:03, United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower. At 9:37, American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. At 10:03, United Airlines Flight 93, believed headed for the U.S. Capitol, went down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers. Both towers collapsed before noon. Nearly 3,000 people died that day, including 343 New York City firefighters and 71 law enforcement officers who ran toward the buildings as everyone else ran away.

Some mornings don't ask permission before they change everything.

The country that woke up on September 12 was different from the one that had gone to sleep the night before. Airport security changed. Emergency response changed. An entire federal department, the Department of Homeland Security, was created because of what agencies learned, sometimes at devastating cost, about coordination gaps that day exposed. First responders from departments who had never trained together found themselves working the same rubble pile within hours, building the interagency habits that are now simply assumed in every major disaster response since.

We are a veteran-owned company, founded by people who understand service in a way that doesn't need explaining to the families we work with every day. Many of the men and women we've supported over the years, and several people on our own team, answered a call to serve that traces directly back to that Tuesday morning. We don't take that lightly.

Twenty-five years is long enough that some of the people reading this were not yet born when it happened, and young enough that most of us remember exactly where we were. Both of those things can be true at once, and both are reasons the day still deserves a few minutes of quiet attention, not just a scroll past a headline.

If you'd like to mark today in some way, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York maintains a permanent tribute and a list of ways to participate in a day of service, in keeping with the "9/11 Day" tradition many communities now observe. The Tunnel to Towers Foundation, founded in memory of firefighter Stephen Siller, continues work supporting Gold Star and fallen first responder families.

Today, we remember.