Today? We Reflect.
Tomorrow? Let's Fly.
Tomorrow? Let's Fly.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2026 --
We vowed that we would never forget. 9/11, we told ourselves, must stay with us forever.
But we did forget. It hasn't stayed with us.
And maybe that's okay. Maybe that's the way it should be.
Maybe nothing, not even the hurt and the pain and the fear and the anger and the confusion and the bewilderment of September 11, 2001, truly matters 25 years later. Maybe the history books and the documentaries are now the best resting place for that tragic day.
You will say that we all lived it. You will say that we, the flyers, should never forget being made the unwitting victims of and the instruments for 9/11. Three thousand innocents died that day--mothers and fathers, friends and lovers, children and parents--and we should never forget them.
I understand all this. I truly do.
There are moments when I recall being trapped in San Francisco with no places to fly on 9/11. And I remember the confusion I felt when I could not see the Twin Towers on the Manhattan skyline as I looked out the window of the aircraft that finally flew me home.
And I will never outrun a thought that has haunted me every day since 9/11: If I had been home, at my house on the Hudson River, I would have seen American Airlines Flight 11 flying below the mountain line and dead reckoning its way south. I would have known something was wrong. I would have called New York TRACON. Maybe, just maybe, possibly, perhaps …
But it is 25 years now. You can't hold on to the hate and the fear and the confusion and the regret forever.
Besides, it's not like 9/11 even brings us together anymore. The 9/11 Truthers are always around with their corrosive conspiracy theories. The sitting president invents absurd stories because he must be the center of attention of everything, even of tragedy. We're still learning how the people pledged to protect us lied about the toxicity of the very air New Yorkers breathed after 9/11. And today, of all days, there are those who don't want the mayor of New York City at Ground Zero because he is not the right religion.
How does any of this help us 25 years later? Why live through the anguish of 9/11 again just to have it all politicized?
Besides, as an optimist, in my head I always hear the words of the 17-year-old Laura Nyro: And when I die, and when I'm gone, there'll be one child born in this world to carry on ...
And born, they have been. An entire generation of adults already have been born since September 11, 2001.
It is their world now. And, for them, 9/11 is history.
You and me? JoeSentMe.com literally exists because of 9/11 and many of you have been here since the beginning. 9/11 is our shared tragedy. It is burned on our hearts and etched on our souls. Even when we forget, our decisions are colored by that dreadful day.
But I say this with every fiber of my being, my friends and fellow travelers: It is time to move on. Let us look forward, not backward.
It's time to join the new adults in the room. Let us grieve one last time today for the people and ideals that perished on 9/11. Then let's help the new adults manage the future.
Our voices matter. The post-9/11 adults will listen. But we must offer them something better than eternal rage, endless remorse and inconsolable pain.
So grieve today, perhaps for the last time.
Reflect today, because we should. To that end, we offer a half-dozen notable columns about 9/11 that our contributors crafted over the years. There is, I hope, value in the reflection.
But tomorrow? Tomorrow, let's fly. Joyfully, if we can, but with purpose at least.
Because getting to the next place is the only way to live the rest of our lives.
And because flying is always the best revenge for the obscenity that was 9/11. -- Joe Brancatelli
THE 'BEST' OF JOE'S 9/11 COLUMNS
Every year on the anniversary of 9/11, I have tried writing a column that reflected the current zeitgeist. Most, frankly, have been abject failures. But two seem worth reviewing today:
EMPTY
In 2005, I went to Ground Zero on 9/11 because I thought I owed you--and myself--some deep insight into what was still a very fresh wound. But despite all the notes I took, all the vignettes I saw and all the tableaux I witnessed, I came back empty.
MY LAST GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP
No matter where you were in the world, September 11, 2001, knocked you off-kilter. Then the rush of events in the next months and years kept us in constant motion and turmoil. I realized that my last good night's sleep was in a hotel on September 10, 2001. It's why I slept through 9/11.
STRANGERS ON (TWO) TRAINS
I was in San Francisco on 9/11, so much of what I learned about that tragic day in New York came from E-mails sent separately by two of my oldest friends. They don't know each other even now, but their experiences, as they exited trains to witness horror, were eerily similar.
FRED ABATEMARCO: DISBELIEF ON A BEAUTIFUL SEPTEMBER DAY
The oily odor of the smoky fire filled my nose. The chalky white dust that descended to the ground stuck to my sweaty forehead. Where the sky once had been backdrop to two New York landmarks, there was only air. Dirty, tomb-like air.
JEFF WASSERMAN: I NEVER REACHED MY OFFICE. THEN IT WAS ON TV.
I was getting out of a subway in the basement of the World Trade Center when I heard a loud, dull thud. Thousands of people started screaming and stampeding toward exits to the streets. Meanwhile, people also were stampeding into the mall. Something had spooked them, but I wasn't curious to find out.
THE LUCK OF THE DRAW
No one escaped 9/11. Even those who were, by luck or fate or geography, nowhere near what became known as Ground Zero. Here are the stories of how the day went down for two frequent travelers.
DAVID DANTO: MY NEAR-MISSES
I was flying out of Newark to Los Angeles early in the morning on 9/11. But I was only able to do that because a meeting I was scheduled to attend at the World Trade Center on 9/11 had been cancelled a few weeks earlier.
MARK ORWOLL: 9/11 WAS AWFUL. ME? I HAD A HARD TIME GETTING HOME.
My story, from the perspective of 25 years, is, at best, an insignificant footnote to the events of 9/11. I experienced an inconvenience. Three-thousand people died that day in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Me? I had trouble getting home.
But we did forget. It hasn't stayed with us.
And maybe that's okay. Maybe that's the way it should be.
Maybe nothing, not even the hurt and the pain and the fear and the anger and the confusion and the bewilderment of September 11, 2001, truly matters 25 years later. Maybe the history books and the documentaries are now the best resting place for that tragic day.
You will say that we all lived it. You will say that we, the flyers, should never forget being made the unwitting victims of and the instruments for 9/11. Three thousand innocents died that day--mothers and fathers, friends and lovers, children and parents--and we should never forget them.
I understand all this. I truly do.
There are moments when I recall being trapped in San Francisco with no places to fly on 9/11. And I remember the confusion I felt when I could not see the Twin Towers on the Manhattan skyline as I looked out the window of the aircraft that finally flew me home.
And I will never outrun a thought that has haunted me every day since 9/11: If I had been home, at my house on the Hudson River, I would have seen American Airlines Flight 11 flying below the mountain line and dead reckoning its way south. I would have known something was wrong. I would have called New York TRACON. Maybe, just maybe, possibly, perhaps …
But it is 25 years now. You can't hold on to the hate and the fear and the confusion and the regret forever.
Besides, it's not like 9/11 even brings us together anymore. The 9/11 Truthers are always around with their corrosive conspiracy theories. The sitting president invents absurd stories because he must be the center of attention of everything, even of tragedy. We're still learning how the people pledged to protect us lied about the toxicity of the very air New Yorkers breathed after 9/11. And today, of all days, there are those who don't want the mayor of New York City at Ground Zero because he is not the right religion.
How does any of this help us 25 years later? Why live through the anguish of 9/11 again just to have it all politicized?
Besides, as an optimist, in my head I always hear the words of the 17-year-old Laura Nyro: And when I die, and when I'm gone, there'll be one child born in this world to carry on ...
And born, they have been. An entire generation of adults already have been born since September 11, 2001.
It is their world now. And, for them, 9/11 is history.
You and me? JoeSentMe.com literally exists because of 9/11 and many of you have been here since the beginning. 9/11 is our shared tragedy. It is burned on our hearts and etched on our souls. Even when we forget, our decisions are colored by that dreadful day.
But I say this with every fiber of my being, my friends and fellow travelers: It is time to move on. Let us look forward, not backward.
It's time to join the new adults in the room. Let us grieve one last time today for the people and ideals that perished on 9/11. Then let's help the new adults manage the future.
Our voices matter. The post-9/11 adults will listen. But we must offer them something better than eternal rage, endless remorse and inconsolable pain.
So grieve today, perhaps for the last time.
Reflect today, because we should. To that end, we offer a half-dozen notable columns about 9/11 that our contributors crafted over the years. There is, I hope, value in the reflection.
But tomorrow? Tomorrow, let's fly. Joyfully, if we can, but with purpose at least.
Because getting to the next place is the only way to live the rest of our lives.
And because flying is always the best revenge for the obscenity that was 9/11. -- Joe Brancatelli
THE 'BEST' OF JOE'S 9/11 COLUMNS
Every year on the anniversary of 9/11, I have tried writing a column that reflected the current zeitgeist. Most, frankly, have been abject failures. But two seem worth reviewing today:
EMPTY
In 2005, I went to Ground Zero on 9/11 because I thought I owed you--and myself--some deep insight into what was still a very fresh wound. But despite all the notes I took, all the vignettes I saw and all the tableaux I witnessed, I came back empty.
MY LAST GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP
No matter where you were in the world, September 11, 2001, knocked you off-kilter. Then the rush of events in the next months and years kept us in constant motion and turmoil. I realized that my last good night's sleep was in a hotel on September 10, 2001. It's why I slept through 9/11.
STRANGERS ON (TWO) TRAINS
I was in San Francisco on 9/11, so much of what I learned about that tragic day in New York came from E-mails sent separately by two of my oldest friends. They don't know each other even now, but their experiences, as they exited trains to witness horror, were eerily similar.
FRED ABATEMARCO: DISBELIEF ON A BEAUTIFUL SEPTEMBER DAY
The oily odor of the smoky fire filled my nose. The chalky white dust that descended to the ground stuck to my sweaty forehead. Where the sky once had been backdrop to two New York landmarks, there was only air. Dirty, tomb-like air.
JEFF WASSERMAN: I NEVER REACHED MY OFFICE. THEN IT WAS ON TV.
I was getting out of a subway in the basement of the World Trade Center when I heard a loud, dull thud. Thousands of people started screaming and stampeding toward exits to the streets. Meanwhile, people also were stampeding into the mall. Something had spooked them, but I wasn't curious to find out.
THE LUCK OF THE DRAW
No one escaped 9/11. Even those who were, by luck or fate or geography, nowhere near what became known as Ground Zero. Here are the stories of how the day went down for two frequent travelers.
DAVID DANTO: MY NEAR-MISSES
I was flying out of Newark to Los Angeles early in the morning on 9/11. But I was only able to do that because a meeting I was scheduled to attend at the World Trade Center on 9/11 had been cancelled a few weeks earlier.
MARK ORWOLL: 9/11 WAS AWFUL. ME? I HAD A HARD TIME GETTING HOME.
My story, from the perspective of 25 years, is, at best, an insignificant footnote to the events of 9/11. I experienced an inconvenience. Three-thousand people died that day in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Me? I had trouble getting home.