Tell the Story

September 11, 2001, I woke up sick with the flu for the third day in a row. I was living in Alexandria, VA, at the time, one of 30 interns from my university there to gain work experience in Washington, D.C. We had just wrapped up our first week there, delighting in the rhythm of boarding the metro in the mornings to go to our jobs, then meeting up in the evenings to tour some part of the nation’s capital and the surrounding suburbs. Then, one by one, we all fell ill.

I looked at the clock on September 11, figured I didn’t need to call in sick for another hour, and turned over to try to sleep. The phone rang. It was for my roommate, so I curled up to sleep again. Thirty seconds later, though, I was struggling out of bed as I heard my roommate screaming, “Wake up! They’ve bombed the Pentagon!” I stumbled out to the main room as she turned on the TV. But the Pentagon was nowhere to be seen. The picture that greeted us was the smoking north tower of the World Trade Center. Too sick and sleepy to do anything else, we both collapsed on our uncomfortable couch and tried to wrap our heads around what was happening. As we watched, we saw the second plane fly into the south tower.

Since we, out of all the interns, had the only television set, our apartment became a mini infirmary. One by one, all the sick ones hobbled or crawled to our door. There we all watched, horrified as it slowly dawned on us what was unfolding before our eyes. We saw the towers fall one by one, the New York skyline forever changed in that hideous twist of history. We finally saw the Pentagon on one channel and called parents to assure them we were unharmed. The few who had been well enough to go into work were stuck in the city, unable to return home until late that night.

The next morning, I pulled myself together to go into the office. My internship was at a political magazine, and I just had to witness their response to the horrors of the day before. I took a taxi into the city since I didn’t know whether the metro line was open. From the back of the taxi, I saw the still-smoking Pentagon in full view, the ugly black hole where the plane had struck yawning like a wide-open mouth. But as I got into the city, I was touched to see the streets bustling with activity. Soldiers patrolled the corners, looking for any signs of another threat. But everyone else was going about their normal business—grim-faced, it is true, but determined that this would be their response to those who sought to strike fear in our hearts. It was their quiet way of saying, “You will not win. We will rise above this.”

It is hard to believe all of that was twenty-five years ago. It is hard to believe that the world we live in now bears any relation to that world then. As we hear the events of 9/11 reclassified as something other than a terrorist attack, as we hear wretches around us declaring that America deserved 9/11, and as we elect to state and national offices people aligned and even affiliated with those who planned our demise that day, we cry, “What happened? How did we forget so soon? How did we get lulled to sleep by those who wish the worst on us?”

But on to the more important question: “What do we do now?” And the answer is, we tell the story. We who remember tell the story. Stories are powerful. Stories have an effect. My fellow interns who gathered in our apartment that horrific day are scattered to the four winds. Most of us are married and are raising our children. And we have to tell them the story of that day. They won’t get it in the schools, so we have to tell them.

We have a special sign over our front door. It is a wooden plaque on which are painted the words of Todd Beamer as he and his fellow passengers on Flight 93 stormed the cockpit to take out the hijackers who had taken over their plane: “Let’s Roll.” My husband and I told our children the story of Flight 93 when we erected the sign over the door. It stands as our quiet reminder, the ultimate motivator to all of us as we walk out to face the world.

The world is growing darker and more perilous. Compared to today, the time surrounding 9/11 strangely seems like a bright and shining beacon of a better time. For one brief—very brief—moment, the country was united by the horror of the events. We stood together against a common enemy outside of our borders. Now our enemies prowl around us, seducing whoever they can to their twisted worldview. Our best answer, then, is to tell the story of what happened, the horrific and the heroic.

Let’s Roll.