Never Forget has been the decree for a quarter of a century now. Two words that have been bolted and forged together, not as a polite suggestion, but as a proclamation constructed by blood, sweat, and tears.
I’ll never forget how clear the sky was that day. I distinctly remember telling myself how beautiful this morning walk down New Hampshire Avenue, from my apartment on U Street to the Kennedy Center, a place I had been working since I moved to Washington, DC, just a few years earlier. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
The daily trek was just under two miles and took 40 minutes. Summer was over – I don’t remember doing anything fun during those few months, and I always looked forward to the fall, and the cooler weather made the trip more enjoyable. I was in my element, and the magnificent and cloudless sky was my reward.
For the past few months, my path to work passed by the apartment building where a woman named Chandra Levy had lived, but had disappeared earlier that spring. Her story dominated the early years of the growing and aggressive 24/7 cable news network and the powerful rise of the internet. I’ll never forget her picture – the awkward one from her senior year of high school, where she sat on the ground covered with painter’s cloth, wearing a white tank top and jeans, looking like she was interrupting a major renovation that was about to take place.
It was discovered that Levy was having an affair with a congressman, whom police suspected of murdering her to keep her silent. The entire thing felt like a plot out of a straight-to-cable movie. I knew a little about her: she was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and although she grew up in California, she moved to the nation’s capital hoping to live a service-focused life, like me. But for reasons unknown at that time, the young Levy had been missing, and my daily ritual of passing by the place where a woman my age lived and knowing it was empty was probably not the best psychological habit to indulge. Little did I know then that I would forget about her almost completely.
That morning the Kennedy Center launched an interactive exhibit featuring President Kennedy’s commitment to the arts, with innovative technology that hadn’t been widely available yet. His youngest brother and Massachusetts Senator, Ted, was on site and interviewed by The Today Show, which meant my floormates and former coworkers in the press office had been at work for a few hours. But for me, it was a regular Tuesday, which meant my routine was the same – I had been at work for at least 30 minutes before our official 9:00 start time, reviewing sales numbers of different performances while logging onto the internet to check the news and to see that my Cleveland Indians lost the night before to the Chicago White Sox, after walking them off the previous two nights. I was happy to know that they remained in first place.
Just before 9:00, I read that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers in New York City.
I’ll never forget thinking: “What kind of idiot flies a plane into one of the largest buildings on the planet?”
As other colleagues arrived at the office and the press team returned from their Kennedy interview, our floor, which housed about 25 people and spanned three departments, had a buzz already in the air about the New York plane accident. A bunch of us went into a colleague’s office with a television on to get updates on the presumed accident.
When I saw the second plane hit the second tower, I thought it was a replay of the original plane.
When someone said it was a different plane, I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
As the buildings began to burn, a few of us decided we didn’t want to witness it any further, and I retreated to my boss’s office. She asked me what I thought would happen to the people trapped in the buildings – the ones on the floors above where the planes had struck. Did I think they could get out?
“I’m not sure,” was all I could muster.
The thought of thousands of people just sentenced to death overwhelmed me. People who, only minutes earlier, had just sat down to work, now had no way out. I’ll never forget that.
In what felt like seconds, people were running through the hallway with reports that the Pentagon was under attack and that multiple bombs had gone off.
My heart sank, and the first feelings of being scared began to creep in.
Now it’s important to remember that most workplaces have emergency evacuation processes, and the Kennedy Center was no different. A few deranged people liked to call in bomb threats every once in a while, so we had fire alarms on a regular basis. The three floors that housed all the employees each had a designated fire drill captain, and unfortunately for my first-floor mates, that captain was yours truly.
The head of our communications department, whom we nicknamed “The Tornado” behind her back because she was always stirring stuff up in her wake, began shouting for everyone to evacuate the building. The sound of F-16s buzzed overhead. Being afraid no longer was creeping in – it had burst through the doors of my heart and was taking over everything.
In the rush of yelling and trying to make sense of everything, two people called me. One was from my oldest friend, ECM. You may remember him from a few of our Ask Me Anything editions. He asked me if I was okay. I said I was, and asked him to call my mother and let her know I’m good and that I would try to call her later.
The other call was from a college friend in Indiana asking the same thing. I said I was good, but needed to leave.
As a “Fire Drill Captain,” you’re supposed to ensure everyone who is in the building gets out before you do. Instead of following the Fire Drill Captain ethos, I hightailed it outta there before anyone else. I guess one could argue I was going to make space outside for everyone once they got there. I wouldn’t make that argument. But I’ll never forget standing in front of the Saudi Arabia Embassy and thinking that we were sitting ducks.
Once free of the building that lacked windows, I could see the sky that was so remarkably blue that morning, now filled with black smoke rising from the Pentagon, a mile and a half down the Potomac River. I’ll never forget the silence and the long walk home while looking back at the death billowing up behind me.
I didn’t know it then, but our country was changed forever.
The terrorist attacks on New York, Washington, DC, and the downed plane in Pennsylvania remain the most extensive foreign assault on American soil. Almost 3,000 people were killed that day. In response, the “War on Terror” began, and it hasn’t ended.
A month later, we invaded Afghanistan and didn’t leave until 2021. In 2003, we tried to tie Iraq to the attack and invaded under false pretenses and didn’t completely leave until 2026. We decided to attack Iran in 2025, and I’m waiting to see when this will stop.
The fallout of 9/11 continues. We created more bureaucracy and, as a result, more surveillance. If you have concerns about more Big Brother initiatives, you can thank the 9/11 attack as the justification to try and root out terrorists, or criminals, or immigrants as quickly as possible – even before they actually commit a crime, or terrorize us.
Our country has militarized everything – from our police force to our sports. We must Never Forget the sacrifice, the service, the dedication of those who defend us from the enemies who chant Death to America. We never forget by watching warplanes fly over stadiums and singing patriotic songs before and during games.
But let’s also not forget: no attack like this has been repeated since.
So much has changed in my life since 9/11. Most of that is simply because 25 years is a long time, and the transition from your 20s to your 50s is significant for anyone. It’s hard to believe that 25 years have passed, and it really feels longer than that.
It would be a dozen years before Blue was born, and then another four before I met Anonymous. In 2001, I was getting to know Aunt Bea, and my Dad would live another 14 years. It would be another decade before I began running half marathons, and Okay History would be created twenty years later.
Work took me up and down the East Coast. I moved to Baltimore twice and returned to Washington, DC. I lived in North and South Carolina for parts of two years. I’ve been married almost four years now. I’ve experienced four work sabbaticals. I’ve lived a lot of life in 25 years, that’s for sure.
I’ll never forget that back in 2005, I worked for a Catholic college in Baltimore, whose enrollment included many students from New York. That year’s commencement speaker was former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. I remember him being such a hero on 9/11; he was “America’s Mayor,” and it wouldn’t be until a couple of years later that details of his management of the city’s security protocols and systems failed and came to light – particularly the communications between EMTs, firefighters, and police. But mostly I remember him being a completely different man than the one we saw deliver a speech in front of the lawn maintenance company almost fifteen years later.
I have such mixed emotions about 9/11. Not that I have happy memories, but mostly, how much of this day am I expected to carry?
I’m not sure how others deal with this anniversary. For the first few years, it was all about telling everyone the multiple stories they’d heard. I once repeated a story I had heard about a man who left his office in the north building to go pick up his dry cleaning and then got a call from a family member saying the building was hit – it turned out my colleague, who was standing in the group with me sharing stories, reiterated that it was his cousin.
Repeating the 9/11 timeline makes 9/11 such a distinct moment in history. We know the moment Flight 11 took off from Boston Logan Airport. We know the moment President Bush learned of the attack, and it feels as if Facebook existed from 2008-2011 so that people could refine their 9/11 story and keep up the mantra of never forgetting. It gets to be too much.
History is fundamentally understanding the past – which means being open to exploring why things took place. The key is not to overthink anything. Learn. Understand. Move on.
That’s what 9/11 is to me. I don’t think about it much, except when the day itself approaches. I understood what happened that day – I lived it. It wasn’t as dramatic as others; I didn’t lose a friend or a family member. I don’t suffer breathing ailments from the smoke inhaled that day. The only person I knew who died that day was my brother’s former boss, a lieutenant colonel in the army, who served as a secretary in the Pentagon. I don’t remember her name, but I remember the night I met her. I’ll never forget her sense of humor and smile. I’m sad that she is gone and that so many innocent lives were lost that day.
I can’t help but think that 25 years from now, I’ll be 75. Or at least I better be. How much of my life will change? How much of 9/11 will I forget? How much do I want to forget and not think I’m breaking the code that says to never do that, the one designated at its inception with no expiration date?
The big question I have when it comes to never forgetting is: why do we relive this day, never forgetting how we felt- the horror, the fear, the sadness? I remember all of that – now what? Terrorism never happens again?
It’s the time of year when 9/11 becomes front and center of our attention, but especially this year when we remember what happened 25 years ago. There won’t be any new twists to the tale – the day and the fallout are what they are. The names will be read. Tears will be shed.
Take care of yourself, and it’s okay if you begin to forget things. Plenty of memories are gone. Plenty more will fade away. History will keep everything together, and you are free to visit. You’ve learned; you understood; it’s okay to move on if you want.
Have a good week. Never forget. But also never forget: it’s okay if you do.
Okay,
Chris
When I feel sad year after year about the events of 9/11, my solice
is remembering that my brother, one of the best people in this earth, was born on that day. Happy birthday, Jim.