09/11/2026
September 11th will never be just another date on the calendar.
For some, it is a memory of exactly where they were when the world seemed to stop. For others, it is a story they grew up hearing about a day that changed America forever.
But for many of us who wore the uniform, September 11th became something more.
It became a reason.
A reason men and women raised their right hands and swore an oath without knowing where that oath might take them. A reason families stood in driveways and airports saying goodbye, never knowing how long the separation would beโor whether everyone would make it home.
On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 innocent lives were taken. Mothers and fathers. Husbands and wives. Sons and daughters. Friends, coworkers, firefighters, police officers, paramedics and ordinary Americans who woke up that morning expecting it to be another ordinary Tuesday.
It wasnโt.
And in the days that followed, this country showed the world what it looked like to stand together.
There were no strangers.
American flags hung from porches, overpasses and storefronts. Communities gathered. First responders ran toward devastation while everyone else was trying to escape it. And thousands of Americans made a decision that would shape the rest of their lives:
They volunteered to serve.
Some of us went overseas. Some came home carrying memories we rarely talk about. Some came home to families who had learned how to live with an empty chair while we were gone.
And some never came home at all.
As a veteran, that is what I think about today.
I think about the lives that ended on September 11th and the countless lives that were forever changed because of it. I think about the brothers and sisters who stood beside us. The ones we still call. The ones we wish we could call.
I think about the families who sacrificed right alongside those who servedโthe spouses who kept households together, the parents who waited for phone calls, and the children who learned far too young what deployment meant.
Twenty-five years have passed since that morning.
An entire generation has grown up without remembering the America that existed before September 11th.
So today isnโt simply about looking backward.
Itโs about remembering.
Remembering the innocent lives stolen that morning.
Remembering the first responders who climbed those stairs when every instinct told everyone else to run down them.
Remembering the service members who answered the call in the years that followed.
Remembering those who came home.
Remembering those who didnโt.
And remembering what this country looked like when, in one of our darkest moments, Americans stood shoulder to shoulder.
For those of us who served, โNever Forgetโ isnโt just something written beneath a photograph once a year.
It carries names.
It carries faces.
It carries memories.
It carries sacrifice.
Today, we remember them all.
The fallen.
The families.
The first responders.
The veterans.
The ones still carrying the weight.
And every American whose life changed on September 11, 2001.
May we never become so far removed from that day that we forget what was lost, what was sacrificed, and what it meant to stand together as Americans.
We remember.
We honor.
And we will never forget.
๐บ๐ธ September 11, 2001
