This September 11 marks the twenty-fourth anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. In those attacks, 19 Islamist hijackers, all from the Middle East, seized four commercial jets and crashed two into New York’s iconic World Trade Towers and one into the Pentagon in Northern Virginia, right across the Potomac River from Washington.
A fourth jet, United Flight 93, was believed to be targeting the US Capitol Building, but thankfully never hit its target, instead crashing into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after some brave passengers and crew fought back against the terrorists, forcing them to ditch the jet into the ground.
Most people around the age of thirty and above have burned into their brains the moment they heard of the horrific attacks, and where they were and what they were doing.
Roanoke teacher Dennis Woodson shares his unique memories from that eventful day.
“September 11, 2001, was the day we were to leave Virginia for Taiwan, where I planned to work for several years as a university English teacher. My wife, seven-year-old daughter, and I flew out of Richmond around 8:30 that morning, heading for Detroit, where we were to change to our flight from the U.S. to Asia. Thankfully, the one-and-a-half-hour flight was uneventful, and we landed safely in Detroit around 10 am. When the plane came to a stop at the gate where we were to disembark, the pilot calmly made this short announcement, ‘There’s been some terrorist activity; it’s going to be an interesting day.’
“Only after we disembarked and entered the terminal did we passengers realize the gravity of his message. The videos playing on every TV monitor showed what had happened a couple of hours earlier. Everyone watched in utter disbelief at the visions of collapsing towers and a burning section of the Pentagon. When we finally regained some composure, we headed to our airline’s information desk to find out what to do next. We were informed that all flights were cancelled until further notice, and that we should arrange to leave the airport by ground travel or stay in a local hotel until flights resumed. Our check-on baggage would be held for us, but we would not have access to it.
“We were fortunate enough to get a room in a local hotel, so checked in there with our carry-on baggage. The sky was blue on this lovely September day, but the only things that flew around the Detroit airport for the next four days were birds. Finally, our carrier informed us that we would be able to leave on our Asian flight, so we boarded the second international flight out of Detroit International Airport after 9/11. Our extraordinary travel experience wasn’t over, however, because we arrived in Taipei airport on the eve of a typhoon that brought the worst flooding Taipei had experienced in fifty years!”
A number of 9/11 commemorations are taking place across the country, including some in our region.
The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) will host the 2025 Roanoke 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb on Saturday, Sept. 13, at 9:00 am at the Wells Fargo Tower on 10 South Jefferson St. Onsight registration begins at 7:30 am.
The sponsoring organization explains: “The NFFF 9/11 Memorial Stair Climbs is a way to honor and remember the FDNY firefighters who selflessly gave their lives so that others might live on September 11, 2001. Each participant pays tribute to an FDNY firefighter by climbing the equivalent of the 110 stories of the World Trade Center. Your individual tribute not only remembers the sacrifice of an FDNY brother but symbolically completes their heroic journey to save others. Through firefighter and community participation, we can ensure that each of the 343 firefighters is honored and that the world knows we will never forget.”
You can find out more and register here.
The Roanoke Valley’s Habitat for Humanity chapter is hosting “9/11, Day of Service and Remembrance 2025” on Sept.11. Organizers said there will be a team of combat veterans and local first responders volunteering their time on a building site located at 1625 Stewart Avenue SE.The memorial ceremony will begin at 8:40 am and end around 9:10 am.
In 2001, many believed that the world had entered a new era of peace, since the former Soviet Union had dissolved and the US and the West had officially won the Cold War about ten years earlier. However, 9/11 exposed such dreams to be only a mirage and showed the world the horrors of Islamist terrorism, a threat that many in the West had been unaware of until that fateful morning.
On the Eve of 9/11 2025, influential conservative speaker, free-speech advocate, and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated on the campus of Utah Valley University. He was 31 and left behind a wife and two young children. Kirk was known for engaging in civil discourse on campuses across the nation, where he invited people to ask him any questions that he sought to answer with respect, reason, and never with name-calling.
Kirk’s murder yesterday, like the 9/11 attacks of nearly a quarter century before, are a stark reminder that the struggles between civility and barbarity, and democracy and violence, are ongoing.
Go Deeper: Read more about 9/11 and its significance here.
–Scott Dreyer
