09/11/2026
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
WE REMEMBER.
Twenty-five years ago today, our nation awoke to an ordinary September morning.
By the end of that day, 2,977 innocent people had been killed, thousands more were injured, and countless families had been changed forever.
We remember those who went to work that morning and never returned home.
We remember the passengers and crews aboard the multiple aircraft.
We remember the men and women inside the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
We remember the firefighters, police officers, paramedics, military personnel, and ordinary citizens who moved toward danger while others were desperately trying to escape it.
Some climbed stairwells knowing what waited above them.
Some carried strangers they had never met.
Some gave their lives attempting to save people whose names they would never know.
And aboard Flight 93, passengers and crew, knowing what had already happened elsewhere, made the extraordinary decision to fight back.
Their courage became part of the story of that day as well.
September 11 did not end when the smoke cleared.
First responders, recovery workers, volunteers, military personnel, families, and entire communities would carry its consequences for years afterward.
Many who worked at Ground Zero later developed serious illnesses associated with their service there.
Families continued to lose loved ones long after the attacks themselves had passed into history.
For me, September 11 also carries a deeply personal memory.
I was serving on active duty in the United States military when the attacks occurred.
Like millions of Americans, I watched the events unfold in real time. But as a service member, I also watched the world around us begin to change almost immediately.
The tempo changed.
The mission changed.
The uncertainty was real.
None of us yet knew exactly where the events of that morning would lead, but we understood that our country, and our service, would not be quite the same afterward.
For those of us already wearing the uniform, September 11 was not simply something we witnessed.
It became part of the world in which we would continue to serve.
But our experience was only one small part of what September 11 meant, and continues to mean.
Today belongs first to those who never came home, to the families who lost them, to those who risked everything trying to save others, and to those who have continued carrying the consequences of that day.
For Freemasons, words such as Brotherly Love, Relief, Truth, Fortitude, and Charity carry meaning only when they are demonstrated through our actions.
On September 11, America witnessed those principles practiced by people from every imaginable walk of life.
They did not stop to ask one another's religion.
They did not ask political affiliation.
They did not ask social status.
They saw another human being who needed help, and acted.
Twenty-five years later, perhaps that remains one of the most important things we can remember.
Remember those we lost.
Remember those who ran toward danger.
Remember those who served afterward.
Remember the families who still carry an empty place at their tables.
And remember what ordinary people were capable of doing for complete strangers when everything else suddenly became unimportant.
September 11, 2001
We remember.
We honor.
We will not forget.
🇺🇸
~ The Masonic Orator
