On Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy struck this country.
Terrorists flew two airplanes into the World Trade Center buildings, as well as the Pentagon.
Nearly 3,000 people died in this unprecedented attack on American soil.
More would have died if not for the bravery of the passengers on Flight 93, but those courageous souls reclaimed control of the plane and flew into a Pennsylvania field, sacrificing themselves to save others.
Where was I when this all happened?
School.
It was 25 years ago, and I remember it vividly, just as the majority of Americans who were born before 2001 and were older than 10 years old at the time.
It was my sophomore year at Canton-Galva High School. I was in science class when the first plane flew into the building.
When class got out, the hallway was quietly buzzing, but I wasn’t sure why.
Then I went to Roberta Hamilton’s Geometry class. The television was on, and she was sitting in front of it, sobbing as images from the attack flickered across the screen.
As I stood in the room trying to assess what was happening, I saw footage of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center Twin Towers.
Then I witnessed the second plane strike.
I watched people jumping to their deaths from windows of the towers in an attempt to escape the flames. A few were still clutching their briefcases.
I was speechless.
My fellow students and I sat down and became relatively silent as we continued to view the coverage of the attack.
Eventually, Mrs. Hamilton composed herself enough to explain why she was so upset.
She is a native of New York.
Silence fell over the class for the rest of the period.
We all just sat there in stunned silence.
While watching the news coverage of the attack, I remember talking to my friend Justin Bacon, and we agreed that some sort of retaliation was imminent.
Neither of us knew anyone who was a victim of the attacks, but we both were kind of angry, I think. I would surmise patriotism was flaring in us just as it was in the hearts and minds of our fellow Americans.
After class, the rest of the day was a blur.
In the hallway, the normal, cacophonous chatter was ratcheted down considerably as word spread of what had happened.
I know we didn’t do much but talk about what had happened, but I don’t remember many specifics.
I drove home from school that day after football practice and talked with my father and one of his friends.
They couldn’t believe what had happened, but they too felt a military response would take place as a result of what had occurred.
It was an intense time in our history.
The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, brought the country together and ignited a passion for the country in nearly all its citizens.
According to TIME Magazine, “On September 12, 2001, 88,000 U.S. flags were sold in Wal-Mart stores, compared to 6,400 on that day a year earlier.”
After 25 years, though, that patriotic flame has been nearly extinguished because this country is far from united.
Our country has become incredibly divided thanks to political polarization and disputes about basic rights and the direction our country should be heading.
Thanks to a rocky and mishandled response to the attacks that resulted in approximately 7,000 American troops dying as part of the Global War on Terror and other malfeasances, trust in the government has plummeted as “17% of Americans now say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right,” according to a 2025 study by the Pew Research Center.
Conspiracy theories about what occurred on that fateful day have flourished, too.
It is a tough pill to swallow, but sometimes only the most horrific occurrences can unite people.
At the same time, though, emotional responses can also cause us to trade our rights for a sense of security.
That’s why we have the USA PATRIOT Act, which allows the government to collect Americans’ phone records and, as the American Civil Liberties Union explained, “information about what books you read, what you study, your purchases, your medical history, and your personal finances.”
The attacks spurred the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and ushered in the era of mass surveillance and governmental control envisioned in George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”
So it makes sense that 54% of Americans polled by a joint survey from Emerson College and Nexstar, “feel the country is less patriotic and united now than immediately following the terror attacks,” and “anti-terror policies also remain controversial, with 34% saying they are overly restrictive of civil liberties.”
Interestingly, that same survey also found “43% said the United States is less safe than before 9/11.”
Of course, more than a third of the country’s population is too young to remember the attacks.
It’s incumbent upon us to educate the younger generations, but we must be careful to avoid the rose-colored glasses.
Those who were killed need to be forever remembered, and we need to look back at everything that occurred 25 years ago and in the subsequent years with clear eyes.
We need to acknowledge the outcomes stemming from the decisions made in the heat of the moment, and we need to work to remedy the errors of those decisions.
In doing so, we can see the bigger picture and work to unify the country again.
That would be the best way to honor those who died.
