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23 years ago (2001)
Sept. 11 - Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the worst terror attack to occur on American soil.
Each year since the 9/11 attacks, a ceremony in New York City is held to remember the events and honor the fallen.
Six moments of silence are observed:
8:46 a.m. Hijacked Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center;
9:03 a.m. Hijacked Flight 175 struck the south tower of the World Trade Center
9:37 a.m. Hijacked Flight 77 struck the Pentagon
9:59 a.m. the south tower of the World Trade Center fell
10:03 a.m. Hijacked Flight 93 crashes in a Shanksville, Pennsylvania, field
10:28 a.m. the north tower of the World Trade Center fell
After the moments of silence are observed, names of those who died in the attacks are read. More names are being read by children and young adults born after the attacks as the previous generation hands off the responsibility of remembering the day that forever changed the dynamic of our nation.
To many Americans Sept. 11 will be a day they will never forget and Sept. 12 became a similar memory for a different reason.
Sept. 12, 2001
Remembering 23 years and one day ago.
Beginning on Sept. 12 and the days, weeks and months following 9/11, Americans came together in a stronger way than most of us had ever experienced in our lifetimes.
A social media post made by former Army Staff Sergeant Graham Allen in 2009 echoed the sentiments of many Americans.
“The best way we could ever honor those lost on 9/11 is to live each day like Sept. 12. There is no race, gender or political side. In the end, the only thing that matters is each other,” the post read. “Americans first, Americans forever.”
“Let’s Roll” became the American rallying cry. These were the last recorded words said by Todd Beamer, 32, a passenger on Flight 93, while speaking with a 911 operator and FBI agent moments before the flight crashed, killing Beamer and all others on board.
Beamer had managed to gain access to phone and make the heroic last phone call answered by a 911 operator who, after hearing his recap of his flights hijacking, told him of the other hijacked flights and the collapse of both towers of the World Trade Center.
Beamer asked the operator to call his wife and to tell her he loved her and their two children as well as his daughter who had yet to born, a birth he would never see. The operator said the Lord’s Prayer with Beamer, who had told her he and a group of other passengers had come up with a plan to overtake the hijackers and regain control of the plane, believed to be headed for Washington D.C. Beamer said he and the others “have decided we would not be pawns in these hijackers suicidal plot.”
Although control of the plane is thought to have never been regained, the courageous acts of Beamer and others are credited with preventing a larger catastrophe by stopping the plane from reaching it’s intended target.
The call ended as Beamer is heard saying:
“God help me…Jesus help me….Are you guys ready?……..Let’s Roll”
Those words were repeated by nearly every American in the coming days and even by President George W. Bush during his 2002 State of the Union Address, “For too long, our culture has said, ‘If it feels good, do it.’ Now America is embracing a new ethic and a new creed: ‘Let’s roll.’”