While we mourn the assassination of Charlie Kirk, we, as Americans, should also remember what this day is: September 11, 2001, was a day that lives in infamy. Today is the 24th year of the post-9/11 world. It was an event that changed a lot of things, some of them permanently, some, sadly, only for a while. Remember the sudden blossoming of American flags on streets, businesses, and front porches? In urban neighborhoods, in small towns, in big cities, in rural homesteads. Remember that sense of national unity we had?
Well, that national sense of unity only seemed to last a few days. The flags didn't all stay up. Our national response to this horror faded away. It shouldn't have - but it did. We all to swiftly returned to business as usual.
How soon we forget.
The September 11th attacks were aimed directly at the heart of America. They were aimed at one of our greatest cities, at two buildings that were the financial capital of the world, at another that was the heart of America's martial might, and a fourth plane may well have been bound for the Capitol or the White House if a band of courageous citizens hadn't figured out what was happening and sacrificed everything to protect their fellow citizens. Today, 24 years later, we should honor their bravery.
On that day, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked those planes and turned them into suicide bombs. This had not happened before. The prevalent wisdom up until then was, if your place was hijacked, to stay in your seat, remain calm and quiet, don't make eye contact with the hijackers, and wait for the plane to land and some kind of negotiations to begin. After that day, that calculus changed dramatically. Many of us were glued to our televisions while events unfolded.
Warning: Graphic images in the video:
On days like this, we remember events in context, in a "where were you when" context. My colleague Rusty Weiss recalled in a 2017 Fox News column where he was, and how that event changed him.
On September 11th, I drove home from work, having been released early due to the attack and subsequent security concerns. While driving home on the highway, mind numb in trying to process the day’s events, I passed under a bridge. Looking up, there was a man who looked more than a bit ragged, as if he had just awakened to hear the news of the attacks, and walked out of his house. Wearing disheveled clothes and a weary face, he somehow found himself standing on this bridge, arms raised skyward, holding the American flag.
Nearly four hours later, needing to clear my head, I decided to get back in my car and take a drive. My route brought me to that same highway, with that same bridge. Four hours later, the same man was still standing there, holding the flag up as high as he possibly could.
I broke down.
Like Wednesday, September 10th, 2025, another day that will live in infamy, we all broke down a little that day.
Read More: JD Vance Cancels 9/11 Plans, Rushes to Be With Charlie Kirk's Family
On that day, I was working at a small medical device company in Aurora, Colorado. The company only had the two owners and six employees, four of whom reported to me. I was headed into work on an early shift that morning and, as I usually did in those days, I had Denver's 850KOA-AM news radio on in my truck. That's how I heard about the first tower.
When I arrived, nobody was getting any work done. After a few essential tasks, we gathered around a radio in the lunchroom. That's how I heard about the second tower. That's how I heard about the Pentagon.
Shortly after that, it being apparent that nobody was up to working that day, the owners sent everyone home. I arrived at the house to find my wife glued to the television. She looked up at me when I came in. She asked, "Can you believe this?"
I picked up our cordless phone and came to sit by her on the couch. She looked at the phone, then at me, with an unspoken question. "The Army will be calling me back," I said. They didn't, and my wife, having been discharged for medical reasons, wasn't subject to recall. But boy, we expected that call that never came. In the days that followed, I considered walking into a recruiting office and offering to come back, but in the end, I didn't. My Dad told me, "You were deployed for one war and in support of another. You've done enough." At the time, I had a young family, a wife dealing with increasingly difficult physical issues, so I decided Dad was right. But if the Army had called, I would have gone.
Today, we should all remember where we were that day, what we were doing, and how hard it hit us. And, even in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination, some of us are observing this day.
On Thursday, America marked the 24th anniversary of the deadly attacks with solemn ceremonies in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The commemorations were punctuated by moments of silence, the tolling of bells and the reading of the names of the nearly 3,000 killed.
That's the key. With Charlie Kirk's murder and the 9/11 attacks, we must remember. We must remember these days, what happened, and why it happened. We must remember that some people hate America and everything that our country stands for. We must remember that America has always been and always will be a force for good in the world, and that good will always be opposed by evil. If we take away nothing else from these horrible days, September 10th, 2025, and September 11th, 2001, we should remember that.
And we must always be ready to act on it.
