What Is 9/11?
After 25 Years, some don’t Know
Other’s don’t Remember
“We do not choose the day destiny calls. We choose who we are becoming before it does.” – KW
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Rick Rescorla went to work.
He was 62 years old. A husband. A father. A decorated Vietnam veteran. At the time, he was vice president of security for Morgan Stanley in the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
Years earlier, Rescorla had become convinced that the World Trade Center remained a target. So he did something that probably annoyed a lot of people.
He prepared. He developed evacuation procedures. He made employees practice them. Again and again. People had jobs to do. Meetings to attend. Money to make. Nobody wanted another evacuation drill.
But Rick insisted.
Then came September 11th.
At 8:46 that morning, American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower.
Rick activated his well-practiced plan and began evacuating his people.
Thousands started down the stairwells. And somewhere inside that burning building, with frightened men and women descending dozens of floors, Rick Rescorla picked up a bullhorn and began singing.
He sang songs from his childhood. He sang “God Bless America.” He kept people calm. He kept them moving. Most of Morgan Stanley’s people made it out.
Rick did not. After helping evacuate thousands, he turned around and went back up the stairs looking for people who might still be inside.
He was last seen climbing upward shortly before the South Tower collapsed.
Think about that.
While thousands of people were desperately trying to get down, one man was going back up.
Why?
I don’t believe Rick Rescorla suddenly became that man on September 11.
I believe September 11th revealed the man he had already become.
And perhaps that is one of the greatest lessons of 9/11.
We Don’t Choose the Day
Most of us will never face anything remotely resembling what those men and women faced that morning.
Thank God.
But every life eventually has its September 11th.
A phone call.
A diagnosis.
A financial collapse.
A fire.
An accident.
A betrayal.
A moment when somebody you love needs you.
We don’t choose when those moments arrive.
We choose who we are becoming before they arrive.
The Stoics understood this. Character is built through the repeated practice of virtue before the crisis comes.
Scripture teaches much the same principle:
“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.”
Luke 16:10
The big moment doesn’t magically create character.
It exposes it.
When destiny calls, we reach for the courage, discipline, faith, training and character we have already built.
Rick Rescorla had been preparing long before the airplane hit the building.
So had countless firefighters, police officers, emergency personnel, military members and ordinary citizens who ran toward danger that day.
Their preparation had begun years earlier.
September 11 simply called upon it.
Who Gets the Center of the Story?
There are important lessons to be learned about how September 11th happened.
A free people must never confuse goodness with naïveté.
We should understand threats. We should study history. We should remain vigilant. We should prepare ourselves and our institutions to recognize evil before it reaches our doorstep.
We should also be careful about whom we make famous.
The men who committed those acts have received enough attention.
What we continually give our attention to, we eventually give significance to.
Every generation gets to decide how it tells the story of September 11 and who occupies the center of it.
I choose the firefighters climbing the stairs.
I choose the police officers running toward the buildings.
I choose the emergency workers treating strangers.
I choose the passengers of Flight 93.
I choose the men and women who carried injured people they had never met.
I choose Rick Rescorla going back up.
Evil may create the moment.
It does not get to own the story.
What Are We Teaching Our Children About 9/11?
This may be the question that matters most to me now.
Twenty-five years have passed.
There are adults raising children today who weren’t even alive when the towers fell.
For them, September 11 can easily become another paragraph in a history book.
A date.
A photograph.
Something that happened a long time ago… and so many do not even know what 9/11 is… not was.
We owe them more than that.
We should tell them the whole story, including the horror.
And then we should hand them the heroes.
Stories shape people.
The stories a civilization tells its children teach them what deserves admiration. They quietly answer questions like:
What does courage look like?
What does citizenship require?
What is worth protecting?
What do good men and women do when other people are in danger?
What does America mean?
Tell them what happened.
Tell them innocent people went to work that Tuesday morning and never came home.
Tell them about the mothers and fathers and sons and daughters whose chairs were empty at dinner that night.
Tell them about the Heroes.
Tell them about strangers helping strangers.
Tell them about Rick.
And then tell them: You are part of this story now.
Citizenship is more than something printed on a passport.
It is an inheritance.
And inheritances carry responsibilities.
What Does It Mean to Be an American?
America is imperfect because human beings are imperfect.
And I remain profoundly grateful that I was born here.
I am grateful for the freedom to worship.
The freedom to speak.
The freedom to build.
The freedom to fail and begin again.
The freedom to raise our children according to our convictions.
The freedom to disagree with one another.
And the extraordinary privilege of living among people who, when the worst happened, demonstrated that underneath all our arguments and differences there remained something deeper.
We were Americans… The United States of America is much more than a country or government.
For a brief period after September 11, we remembered that.
Maybe one way to honor this anniversary is to remember it again.
And remember what it really means when we say we are…
American.
There are things bigger than our disagreements.
There are things worth defending.
There are people worth serving.
There are responsibilities worth carrying.
And there are moments when a human being simply has to decide:
Am I going down the stairs because that’s where safety is, or am I capable of going up because somebody needs me?
Never Forget
We say those words every September.
Never Forget…
However, remembrance without application eventually becomes ceremony.
So perhaps “Never Forget” should mean more than recollection.
Maybe it can be ALWAYS REMEMBER.
Remembering what happened.
Remember the dead.
Remember who they were.
Remember who you are.
This will in and of itself Honor the families who carried an unimaginable absence forward.
And Honor the firefighters, police officers, emergency responders, military personnel and ordinary citizens who answered that day.
Then do something with their example… do something with this core Identity… act on it.
Prepare.
Become stronger.
Love your family.
Know your neighbors.
Take responsibility.
Teach your children.
Develop competence.
Practice courage before courage is required.
Protect what is good.
Pay attention to evil without allowing it to dominate your attention.
And become the kind of person who can be counted on when counting on someone matters most.
Because none of us knows when our moment will come.
Rick Rescorla didn’t know when he conducted those evacuation drills.
The firefighters didn’t know when they reported for their shifts.
The passengers on Flight 93 didn’t know when they boarded their airplane.
September 11, 2001 began as an ordinary Tuesday morning.
Then history called.
And ordinary people answered.
We do not choose the day destiny calls.
We choose who we are becoming before it does.
That may be one of the greatest things September 11 can still teach us.
And twenty-five years later, that is a story worth telling our children.
Never forget. Always Remember.
And live in such a way that we are worthy of being an American.
Dr. Keith M. Waggoner