An entire generation of Americans is not old enough to remember September 11, 2001. I remember every moment as if it was yesterday: The clear sunny sky, the start of a new school year. In those days, I still listened to NPR. As I turned a corner on my commute to the Senate, the newsreader mentioned a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. Doubtless a private pilot I thought.
I got to work, and as the minutes passed and the nature of the attack became clear, my colleagues and I were riveted, unable to move from our screens. We were calling our families in New York, our friends, our colleagues at the Pentagon. When the Capitol Police turfed us out of the building in the expectation that Flight 93 might have been headed our way, we streamed out of the building in shock.
Of course, the rest is history. But like many of my fellow Americans, I suspect, I can replay every moment in my mind. The blurry faces hanging from windows. The fear, the horror, and for days, the silence.
Read more in the WTH Substack here.