The tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, keeps moving deeper into the past, yet even after more than two decades, the memories of that horrific day remain fresh and painful to those of us who lived through it.
Hard as it may be to believe, this week the nation is marking the 22nd anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, at the Pentagon and aboard a plane that crashed in a field in Somerset County, diverted from its presumed Washington target by heroic passengers.
Enough time has passed since then for people just born or not yet born to have grown into young men and women. A generation of Americans has grown up knowing only the post-9/11 world of enhanced security measures and lingering anxiety. For them the events of that day amount to history, not memory.
There’s been considerable effort over the years to teach young people what happened on that fateful late summer day; how an ordinary Tuesday turned unspeakably tragic. It’s impossible to fully convey the feelings those memories elicit, but it’s imperative that we keep trying so that future generations never forget.
It started that morning with a report of a plane crashing into one of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center. It was presumed to be an accident at first, until another plane hit the other tower in Lower Manhattan. Later that morning came the attack on the Pentagon, and the collapse of the New York towers, shown on TV in what seemed like an endless loop. Finally there was the painful wait to learn just what happened to United Airlines Flight 93, which disappeared en route to San Francisco from Newark, N.J.
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