September 11, 2001, was the lucid interval in American history where catastrophe revealed latent courage within so many. Amid the horror, greatness surfaced everywhere, from ordinary people doing extraordinary things because duty demanded it.
The day is staggering because of how many people ran straight into certain death to rescue as many as they could. Thousands of first responders, firefighters and police officers, saved thousands of lives knowing that they might lose theirs. Brooklyn Squad 1’s Stephen Siller ran to the Twin Towers on foot from the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, wearing 60 pounds of gear. Officer John W. Perry had turned his badge in to retire from the NYPD that day, only to ask for it back once the towers were struck to run back into the line of duty. I think of Father Mychal Judge, Victim 0001, the FDNY chaplain who accompanied his men into death. None of them turned and ran that day, nor did their comrades for the years following, digging through a million tons of rubble to find what remained of others, to restore and rebuild a great city.
America would not yield. It was seen in the sacrifice made by every American that day. There are photos everywhere of stricken and ash-covered people staying upright to bear the weight of strangers. Todd Beamer, Tom Burnett, Mark Bingham, Jeremy Glick, all of the passengers of United Flight 93 were just ordinary people that morning. Todd said “Let’s roll,” and they ran toward the hijackers and likely saved the Capitol from destruction. Welles Crowther in his red bandana, who saved 18 lives. Rick Rescorla, who had come from Britain to fight for America in Vietnam and gave his life evacuating thousands from the South Tower. Survivors say he sang a battle hymn through to the end.
Our world is worse for the absence of those who are gone, though it is not fully disenchanted. They’ve left behind an example for how to live for the good of another, one that still holds 25 years later and touches us all.