25 years later ...
It’s one of those moments we will never forget.
If you were old enough to grasp the enormity of what was unfolding on that television screen 25 years ago this week, the images of the 9/11 attack on America are forever seared in your memory. It was unbelievable, gut-wrenching, physically painful to watch, and yet we couldn’t take our eyes away from what we knew in real time was a turning point in American history.
The moment that plane hit the second tower in New York City, the whole world understood in a heartbeat that America would soon be at war.
When the Twin Towers came crashing down that fateful day, I remember thinking that I had never seen anything so devastating in my lifetime. The Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941 was long before my time, but for a whole new generation of Americans, if not two or three, such a blatant act of war seemed improbable.
Twenty-five years later, so much has changed, including airport security and the glum reality that global conflict seems a real and credible threat on several fronts, almost daily. We live in a very different time now, and not just on a global scale, but right here at home within our own borders.
One of the most powerful impressions so many of us have from 9/11 is the unmistakable sense of unity Americans shared as we first watched the events unfold, then began to grasp what it meant. The bottom line was that OUR country was attacked. OUR fellow citizens were killed by terrorists. And OUR president and OUR Congress would be trusted in the weeks and months ahead to respond accordingly. Without question, there was a sense of oneness in what that meant to Americans.
That sense of unity was about more than the American flags that suddenly appeared on front porches and storefronts across the country. In the days and months following 9/11, a whole new generation of Americans stepped forward to serve. Young men and women enlisted in our military, knowing full well that America was heading to war.
They answered a call to something bigger than themselves.
That may be one of the questions that weighs most heavily on my mind as we reflect on this 25th anniversary. What would it take to stir that same sense of duty and purpose today? What would inspire a new generation of Americans to set aside their own interests and answer a call to serve their country and their fellow citizens?
Watching the many emotional tributes and anniversary retrospectives on the 9/11 attacks this last week, I couldn’t help but wonder how our country, my country, would react if, God forbid, a similar attack were to unfold today.
America has become such a divided land that the first instinct seems not to think as one, but rather to point fingers of blame across the growing chasm of political divide. Who can we blame? Which side is responsible? What political advantage can be gained?
That reality cast a whole new level of angst and sadness on 9/11 for me. This country needs to find a way to do what we’ve always done. We need to remember that, despite our differences, there are still things greater than our disagreements. We need to rediscover a sense of shared responsibility, shared sacrifice and shared purpose.
Because America is at its best not when we all think alike, but when we remember that we are all Americans. Maybe that is the lesson worth carrying forward from Sept. 11, 2001.
We need to find our way back to one another; to re-unite as one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
— Kurt Johnson