On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, nineteen hijackers took control of four commercial airliners. Two were flown into the World Trade Center in New York. One was flown into the Pentagon. The fourth, United Flight 93, crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers tried to retake the cockpit. Nearly 3,000 people were killed.
There are numbers that help us understand the scale of that day. But numbers have never been enough to explain what September 11 did to this country.
It changed families. It changed communities. It changed the military. And for an entire generation of Americans who would serve in uniform, marry someone who did, raise children through deployments or send a loved one to war, September 11 became not only something they remembered but something they lived for decades afterward.
American forces entered Afghanistan within weeks. The war in Iraq followed in 2003. Over the next two decades, millions of American service members deployed, many multiple times. More than 7,000 U.S. service members were killed in post-9/11 military operations. Tens of thousands were wounded. Countless others returned carrying injuries and experiences that were harder to see.
Families carried their own part of that burden.Spouses learned to live with deployment dates that changed, extended, and changed again. Children grew up counting months until their parent came home. Parents watched sons and daughters leave for places that had suddenly become part of the American vocabulary.
And sometimes, homecoming was not the end of the story.
Twenty-five years is enough time for children who watched September 11 unfold in elementary school classrooms to become parents themselves, for young troops who deployed in response to those attacks to finish entire military careers, for a generation of military families to look back and recognize just how much of their lives was shaped by a single morning.
It is also enough time for memory to begin becoming history.
We Promised To Never Forget
This fall, first-year students are arriving at Syracuse University who were born years after the September 11 attacks. They have never known an America before 9/11.
For them, the attacks exist through photographs, documentaries, memorials, textbooks and the stories of people who were there.
That makes remembering different now.
“Never forget” can no longer mean simply remembering where we were that morning. It also means telling the next generation what happened, who was lost, what followed and what was asked of millions of Americans in the years afterward.
At the D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University, many of the people doing that work every day are themselves part of that story. We asked several of our military-connected colleagues to remember September 11, 2001, and reflect on how that day stayed with them.
Kenneth Mayes
Employment Navigator
Onward to Opportunity
US Army, Retired
I was serving as a Platoon Sergeant at Fort Bragg, NC. Seeing occupants of the tower jumping out of windows on live television is something I will never forget. I was raised in NYC and worked as a messenger while in HS and have been in the towers on countless occasions. For me, the impact was different because I had walked the grounds that this catastrophic event occurred.
Bob Milner
Entrepreneur in Residence
Entrepreneurship & Small Business
US Air Force Veteran
I was sitting on the tarmac in a United 757 on my way to Newark for about an hour prior to returning to the gate. We did not pull all the way to the gate. We stopped short and they rolled a mobile step system to the front door. Several officers boarded the plane and explained that we needed to depart and leave all of our belongings. Everyone was confused. As soon as we entered the gateway in the terminal, everyone was crowded around the tv’s in the restaurants and bars, and the unknown became the horrifying known. It took over a week before we could go back and retrieve our luggage and carry-ons. Everything was stacked up in the luggage carousel areas and the hallways in the terminal.
Brian M. Collins
User Experience Manager
Onward to Opportunity
US Army Veteran
I was in the Army but up until that point we trained differently. We trained to fight for a different war, a war we basically knew wasn’t going to happen but that all changed on 9/11, we were now at war and the ensuing deployments changed who I was and who I am. War changes you and you can’t deploy to Afghanistan and not leave a piece of you over there both physically and mentally.
Prior to that day, I wasn’t naive to think that that world was a peaceful place, I had deployed to places like Bosnia and Kuwait and had seen what war can do to these countries but a lot of the conflicts were happening overseas, which honestly seemed far away from our shores. There was a peacefulness and a sense of invincibility to living in America that was shattered that day and I don’t believe it has been the same since 9/11.
Benjamin Dufay
Director Career Preparation & Training
Onward to Opportunity
US Navy and Army Veteran
I knew my future in the military would never be the same. The focus instantly shifted, and I was right. After completing a few more years in the Navy, I left and commissioned as a warrant officer in the Army, becoming a Blackhawk pilot. This put me on the front lines of the global war on terror, and I spent over 36 months deployed to the Middle East over a handful of deployments.
Jill Chambers
Advisory Board Member
Former Military Secretary for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The moment my team and I got out of the building we could actually touch the black smoke that had floated over the top of the Pentagon.
We were totally speechless for just a moment and then I looked at my team and said “let’s go…we know what to do”.
Without hesitation my soldiers reacted and performed at the risk of their own lives. I saw heroes in action and to this day we call each other on 9/11 thankful we are alive and genuinely filled with gratitude for our teamwork that day.
When prompted the vivid memories of that day in the Pentagon are back in a flash… The events of 9/11 were horrific and tragic, and given all this time I feel grateful that I’ve been able to move forward in a positive way and enjoy my life’s journey without carrying a heavy load of the memories of that day.
The years that have followed from my experience of 9/11 created a pathway for me to educate myself on how to overcome my posttraumatic stress challenges through non-pharmaceutical means. I earned three master’s degrees in the areas of complementary and integrative health, and now use these skills to help those veterans who are ready to take charge of their own health.
Jim Yauger
Program Manager
Entrepreneurship & Small Business
US Army Veteran
My most vivid memory of that day was the fear that I felt when Flight 93 went down. Shanksville was only 45 miles from where I was working at the time, so it really hit home for me. Especially when later that day, they showed the flight pattern of the plane and it had flown directly over my location. Scary stuff.
Lauren Hope
Associate Director, Growth
Entrepreneurship & Small Business
Army Spouse
At the time, I had no idea how deeply September 11 would shape my life. I later married a soldier, and my adulthood looked nothing like the life I had imagined growing up.
The military gave us extraordinary friendships, travels, experiences, and memories. Those gifts are priceless. But the price attached to them was real: deployments over birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays; decades spent far from family; and the fear that the knock at the door might be the one that haunted me in my sleep. That was a price someone else chose to charge on September 11.
I also learned how incredible Americans can be. On September 12, we were mourning, but we were united. We came together with compassion, courage, and a shared sense of responsibility for one another. That remains one of the most hopeful lessons of my life.
Karri Suh
Senior Manager
Marketing & Communications
Marine Corps Spouse
I was at the UGA main library shelving books when a friend found me in the stacks and said we were under attack. I didn’t quite understand what was meant by “under attack.” We went downstairs just in time to watch the second plane slam into the building. We were all in shock. No one really had cell phones back then so we watched for a few hours then the university sent everyone home. No one was sure of what to do next or where other attacks might happen.
Keith Kappel
Content Writer
Marketing & Communications
US Navy Veteran
I actually separated from the Navy on the 10th of that September, and had been home on terminal leave since the 1st after doing a work-up cycle with the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). I was excited to be moving on with the next chapter of my life back in the civilian world, and I just remember waking up with CNN on in the background and seeing the attacks. It may seem selfish, but I just had this view of all my post-service plans collapsing. The Theodore Roosevelt was about to start its cruise, and I knew then it’d be a war cruise to the Middle East. I stared at my phone for two weeks dreading a call that never came.
Zachary Bridgewater
Research Associate
Community Insights & Impact
Navy Spouse
It was one of the first times I saw the adults in my family feel truly vulnerable, and I think that made me realize that there are questions no one has an answer to. I don’t recall feeling vulnerable, again, being too young at that time to understand, but I remember trying to hug and talk to my family and distract them.
Moving Forward While Remembering the Past
Everyone has distinct memories from that morning and where they were whether that was in a classroom, a library, a military base, a workplace or a living room, wondering what would happen next.
None could know what the next 25 years would bring: deployments, missed birthdays, separation and reunion, or the difficult work of building a life after war. They could not know that children watching televisions in classrooms would one day become service members or military spouses themselves.
Remembering September 11 means honoring the nearly 3,000 people who never came home, the service members who answered the call, and the spouses, children, parents and caregivers who carried the weight of those wars alongside them.
It also means supporting veterans and military families long after the headlines faded. That work is central to why the IVMF exists: helping veterans navigate transition, military spouses pursue careers, entrepreneurs build businesses and communities better understand military-connected families.
Twenty-five years later, a new generation will know September 11 through the stories we tell. We remember those we lost, honor those who served and stand with the families who carried the cost.
And we keep the promise we made: We will never forget.