September 11, 2001: We Promised We Would Never Forget

Twenty-five years ago this morning, America awakened to a beautiful September day. The sky over New York City was an unforgettable blue. People went to work, boarded airplanes, dropped children off at school, kissed spouses goodbye and hurried through lives they assumed would continue exactly as planned.

Then, at 8:46 Eastern time, everything changed.

By the end of September 11, 2001, terrorists had murdered 2,977 innocent people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Thousands more were injured. Families were shattered. Children lost parents, parents lost children, and husbands and wives heard final “I love yous” from people who knew they were probably not coming home.

America lost something that day that we have never completely recovered.

I remember exactly where I was.

I was serving as chairman of the Ford National Dealer Council and had flown to Midland, Texas, to meet with Ford dealers from across West Texas. That morning, I turned on Good Morning America in my hotel room and saw smoke pouring from one of the World Trade Center towers. At first, everyone thought a small airplane might have accidentally struck the building.

Then I watched the second plane hit.

At that moment, I knew it was no accident. America was under attack.

I went downstairs for the dealer meeting, but nobody in that room could concentrate on dealership problems. I called the meeting to order, looked into the worried faces of 30 or 35 people and tried to begin. Five minutes later, I stopped.

“There are more important things going on than this,” I told them. “Go be with your families. This can wait.”

That was all any of us wanted—to get home.

Every airplane in America had been grounded, leaving me 350 miles from Dallas. Three Ford representatives and I piled into a rented Mercury Grand Marquis and started driving. In our confusion, we initially headed toward El Paso instead of Dallas, which added another hour to a trip that already seemed endless.

What I remember most was the silence in the sky. No airplanes. Very few cars. Just four stunned men listening to the radio and trying to understand what was happening to our country.

When I finally reached my dealership that afternoon, there was not a customer in the building. I told my managers to close early and went home to my family, exhausted and uncertain about what tomorrow would bring.

Millions of Americans have their own September 11 story. They remember the office where they were working, the classroom where a teacher turned on a television, the phone call from a spouse or the moment someone told them to come look at the news. Those memories are now a quarter-century old, but for those of us who lived through that day, they have never completely faded.

Something remarkable happened in the days that followed. American flags appeared everywhere—on homes, businesses, bridges, overpasses and vehicles. People stood in line for hours to donate blood. Churches filled. Strangers checked on strangers. We thanked police officers, firefighters, paramedics and members of our military. Political differences that had seemed so important on September 10 suddenly did not matter very much.

For a while, we remembered that before we were Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, Northerners or Southerners, we were Americans.

I wish we could have held on to more of that.

We said we would never forget, and I believe most of us sincerely meant it. Yet forgetting does not always mean losing the memory of an event. Sometimes it means remembering what happened but forgetting what it taught us.

“Never forget” is more than recalling the sight of the burning towers. It is remembering the office workers who helped co-workers down smoke-filled stairwells. It is remembering the passengers aboard Flight 93 who knew what had happened in New York and Washington and chose to fight back. It is remembering the firefighters climbing upward while everyone else was trying to get out. It is remembering police officers, paramedics, military personnel and countless ordinary Americans who ran toward danger because somebody needed them.

It is remembering the families who have lived with an empty chair at the table for 25 years.

A year after the attacks, while I was still in the automobile business, I ran a full-page newspaper message honoring those I called America’s true heroes. It was not an advertisement for a vehicle or a dealership sale. It was a plea to fly the flag, support our first responders, help someone in need and hold our families a little closer.

The final thought was simple: “Don’t wait until later becomes too late.”

Twenty-four years after writing those words, I believe them more strongly than ever.

If there is someone you love, tell them. If there is someone you need to forgive, do it. Thank a police officer, firefighter, paramedic, service member or veteran. Help a neighbor. Call an old friend. Fly the American flag today—and leave it flying tomorrow.

Most importantly, tell the story of September 11 to someone who is too young to remember it. An entire generation of Americans has now grown up knowing 9/11 only as history. They did not watch it happen. They did not experience the fear, the heartbreak or the extraordinary unity that followed. If they are going to understand what “never forget” truly means, those of us who remember must teach them.

For nearly a quarter-century, I have played the audio tribute you will find below on the Car Pro Show. It begins before the first airplane struck and follows the events of that terrible morning, narrated by my longtime Trusty Sidekick, the great Kevin McCarthy and me. It ends with a recording of me teaching my then-three-year-old nephew Connor the Pledge of Allegiance, accompanied by the incomparable Lee Greenwood.

That little boy’s voice may be the most important part of the entire tribute because remembrance is not inherited automatically. It has to be passed from one generation to the next.

Please do not merely let this recording play in the background. Listen to it. Share it with your children or grandchildren. Remember the lives that were stolen, the heroes who emerged and the country we briefly became.

We cannot return to September 10, 2001, and we would never want to relive September 11. But perhaps we can recover something of September 12—the unity, gratitude, courage and unmistakable love of country that reminded us who we were.

Twenty-five years ago, we promised the victims, their families and one another that we would never forget.

On this anniversary, let us prove that we meant it.

Car Pro Show 911 Tribute →

Photo: ChatGPT Plus/CarPro.