Where were you on 9/11? I remember how perfect the day was when my colleague Cindy came into my office and said, “Guy, they flew a plane into the World Trade Center!” Realizing that this was an attack on all Americans, I felt the need to help. It may have been a useless gesture, but some of us joined the hundreds already in line at the blood donation center. Like Pearl Harbor, the attack revealed to us our invisible bonds as Americans. One personal story has come to my mind lately as I have reflected on that day.
My friend and his wife were in Japan visiting her family when the attack came. Normally, she would have been taking the commuter train into Manhattan on 9/11. Upon her return some weeks later, she boarded the train as always only to find that the other commuters were more than just strangers sharing a train. People came up to her to say how glad they were that she was still alive. They thought that her absence meant that she was one of the victims. Some wept. I miss that unity, but this insignificant story makes me believe that our invisible bonds are always there.
In his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln wrote:
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Twenty-five years later, we cannot forget what happened in New York, at the Pentagon, and especially on United Airlines Flight 93, where American hero Todd Beamer’s last words were “Are you ready? Okay. Let’s roll!” Could we ask for better angels?
Never forget.
* Lincoln, A. "The First Inaugural Address". Library of Congress, online. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lincoln/ext/transcription14.html. Accessed 11 September 2026.
** The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. " What happened on United Airlines flight 93? ". Encyclopedia Britannica, 10 Sep. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/question/What-happened-on-United-Airlines-flight-93. Accessed 11 September 2026.