September 11 has always been more than a “thoughts and prayers” or “never forget” day for me.
Twenty-five years later, it still has a visceral effect on me.
I remember that morning like it was yesterday.
I woke up to a phone call saying we were under attack and that I had to get to the Prince George Airport immediately, where I was working at the time.
I turned on the TV and radio just as my friend and radio announcer Mike Benny said the words: “It looks like the U.S. is under attack.”
And then the second tower was hit.
What followed in the minutes, hours and days afterward was chaotic.
Were there more hijacked aircraft? Were the attacks going to move to the ground? Were there other targets?
At the Prince George Airport, we were told to find road barriers and block access — 50 metres at first, then 100 metres. The RCMP put up roadblocks.
We were shaken to our core. We were told more attacks could be imminent.
And the truth is, we had been attacked.
Terrorists had found and exploited a weakness. Thousands of innocent people were murdered that day.
But the cost of September 11 did not end when the towers fell.
More lives would be lost in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the war against al-Qaeda. First responders, recovery workers and others who breathed the toxic air at Ground Zero would become sick in the years and decades that followed. Families would continue to lose people they loved long after the television cameras were gone.
That is part of September 11 too.
I will never forget the images from that morning. But more than anything, I think about the people.
The firefighters, police officers and first responders who ran toward unimaginable danger.
The everyday citizens who stopped thinking about themselves and tried to save someone else.
People who knew they were in danger and kept going anyway.
And I remember something else.
Even in those first uncertain hours, I knew that our two countries, divided by a border but united by so much more, would not fade or shrink in the face of what had happened.
We would stand together.
We would grow stronger together.
And no matter how long it took, we would hunt down the bastards responsible.
Twenty-five years later, September 11 still affects me in a way that is difficult to put into words.
Maybe that is why simply saying “never forget” has never felt like enough.
Because remembering September 11 isn’t only about remembering what happened.
It’s about remembering what it cost.
And remembering the people who carried that cost, that day, in the years that followed, and still today.