Twenty-Five Years Later, Remembering When We Stood Together

Twenty-five years ago on September 11th, nearly 3,000 people went to work, boarded airplanes, went about their morning routines … and never came home.

They were Americans and immigrants. Black, White, and Hispanic. Rich and poor. Working class and upper class. Christians, Jews, Muslims and people of no particular faith. They were parents, children, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, friends and strangers. They were us.

Twenty-five years.A quarter of a century. And somehow, it still doesn’t seem possible.

We remember where we were. We remember the images. We remember the disbelief. We remember watching television and wondering when someone would tell us that this couldn’t possibly be happening. And then we remember what happened next.

We remember strangers helping strangers. We remember firefighters, police officers, EMTs, and ordinary people running toward danger while the rest of us were trying to understand what was happening. We remember American flags appearing everywhere.

We remember the silence.

And perhaps most importantly, we remember how, for a little while, we stopped being so concerned about what separated us and remembered what connected us.

We were a community. We were a country. We were Americans.

Every year, Skip and Kathy Rogers of the Able Forces Foundation have helped our community remember that day. At the gazebo, the bell rings to mark each attack, followed by personal accounts and stories that put human faces and human voices to a day many of us will never forget.

It is moving. It is painful. And it is worth remembering.

This year marks the 25th anniversary, and we are hoping our community will come out in greater numbers than ever.

Our friend Skip may have to pass the torch for a year, although we are all hoping that won’t be necessary. But regardless of who rings the bell, the story deserves to be told.

And we should listen. And pass this along to those who were not yet born. It’s an important story.

So we’re asking the people of Warren County to come to the gazebo this September 11th, beginning at 8:30 am.

Republicans. Democrats. Conservatives. Liberals.People who agree with each other. People who absolutely do not.

People who have been arguing about something on Facebook five minutes before they read this. Leave all of that at home. For one morning, come as neighbors.

Because on September 11, 2001, nobody stopped to ask the person next to them how they voted. Nobody cared what political party was on their voter registration card. Nobody asked what side of the argument they were on.

They simply helped. They stood together. They mourned together. They prayed together. They hoped together.

And in the days that followed, something happened that seems almost foreign to us now. We remembered that we needed one another. Twenty-five years later, perhaps that is the part we need to remember most.

The people who died that day did not belong to one political party, one race, one religion, or one social class. They belonged to families. They belonged to friends. They belonged to communities. They belonged to all of us.

And their lives deserve more than a date on a calendar and a moment of silence once a year. They deserve to be remembered.

So please, stop by the gazebo on September 11. Between 8:30 am and 10:30 am. Come to remember the nearly 3,000 people who never got to go home. Come to honor those who ran into burning buildings while others were running out. Come to honor Skip and Kathy and their years of making sure our community remembers.

But come for another reason, too. Come to remember who we were. Because somewhere along the way, we got very good at remembering what divides us.

Maybe September 11 can remind us of something else. That we are still neighbors. That we are still a community. That there are things bigger than our disagreements. And that the people standing beside us, regardless of how they vote, what they believe, or which side of the latest argument they occupy, are still people.

Twenty-five years ago, we came together because we had no choice. Today, we have a choice.