September 11: Remember the Day, the Heroes and the America We Became

Guest Opinion by Perry Hooper Jr.

September 11, 2001, began as an ordinary Tuesday morning. Americans went to work, parents took children to school, and families said goodbye without imagining that those hurried words might be their last. Then, in a matter of moments, our nation was attacked, thousands of innocent lives were taken, and the course of history was forever changed.

We remember the nearly 3,000 souls who were lost at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and aboard Flight 93. They were mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors. They came from different backgrounds, practiced different faiths and pursued different dreams, but they were all part of the American family. Their absence is still felt around dinner tables and during birthdays, graduations, weddings and every other family milestone they should have lived to see.

We remember the heroes who ran toward danger while everyone else was trying to escape it. Firefighters climbed the stairs of the burning towers carrying heavy equipment, knowing the risks but refusing to abandon the people trapped above them. Police officers, emergency medical personnel and ordinary citizens placed the lives of strangers ahead of their own. Many gave their last full measure of devotion that morning. Others survived but carried lasting injuries and illnesses caused by their service at Ground Zero.

We remember the courageous passengers and crew of Flight 93. When they learned what was happening, they did not surrender to fear. They acted. Their final words, “Let’s roll,” became a declaration of American courage. Because of their sacrifice, another intended target was spared. They showed the world that Americans may be surprised, wounded and even knocked down, but we will never submit without a fight.

We remember the men and women of our Armed Forces who answered the call in the years that followed. Many were young Americans who had watched the towers fall and decided that their place was in uniform. They served in distant lands, endured long separations from their families, and placed themselves in harm’s way to defend our homeland. Some returned with wounds that can be seen. Others came home carrying wounds that cannot. Far too many never returned at all.

Above all, we remember the families. Their sacrifice did not end when the smoke cleared or when the television cameras moved on. For them, September 11 is not simply a chapter in a history book. It is the day a chair at the table became permanently empty. It is the sound of a final telephone call, the memory of a last embrace and the future that was stolen from someone they loved. Our nation owes these families more than sympathy. We owe them our enduring remembrance.

But there is something else we must remember about September 11: how America responded.

In the hours and days after the attacks, we did not see ourselves primarily as Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, Northerners or Southerners. We saw ourselves as Americans. We stood together. We prayed together. We gave blood, raised money, comforted grieving families and filled churches. American flags appeared on homes, businesses, bridges and highways. Strangers embraced one another because we understood that an attack on any American was an attack on us all.

The terrorists sought to destroy our spirit. Instead, they reminded us of its strength.

For one remarkable moment, the arguments that so often divide us became smaller than the country we shared. We remembered that America is not held together merely by geography, government or economics. We are bound by a belief in liberty, a commitment to one another and faith in Almighty God. We remembered the words generations of Americans have proudly spoken: We are “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Twenty-five years later, our nation needs that spirit again. We do not need another tragedy to remind us that we are one people. We should be able to disagree without hating one another, debate without destroying one another and compete politically without treating our fellow citizens as enemies. The lesson of September 11 is not that our differences disappeared. It is that, when America was tested, what united us proved far greater than what divided us.

We must teach the next generation what happened that day. Many young Americans were born after September 11. They did not see the second plane strike the South Tower. They did not watch the towers fall or witness the smoke rising from the Pentagon. They did not experience the terrible uncertainty of that morning or the extraordinary unity that followed. It is our responsibility to tell them the whole story—not only the evil inflicted upon America, but also the courage, sacrifice, faith and patriotism with which America answered.

On this September 11, let us lower our flags, bow our heads and speak the names of those we lost. Let us thank the first responders who still serve our communities, honor the veterans who defended our country and embrace the families whose grief continues long after the anniversaries pass.

Let us also make a promise worthy of those who sacrificed everything: We will remember the day. We will remember the heroes. We will remember the lives that were lost and the families who were forever changed. We will remember how, in our darkest hour, Americans reached for one another and turned to God.

We will never forget. We are still the United States of America—one nation, one people and one Nation under God.

Perry O. Hooper Jr. is a longtime Alabama Republican figure, former Alabama Legislator and Montgomery businessman. He served as Co-Chair of “Alabama Trump Victory” in 2016, and served as an at-large delegate to the Republican National Convention. He is a noted civic leader in Montgomery with deep family roots in Alabama’s legal and political history.

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