25 years on and keeping their memories alive

Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 - Two thousand, nine hundred seventy-seven people lost their lives in the deadliest attack on our country's soil.

Every year, communities across the United States pay tribute to the victims and their families. Their names are read aloud in downtown New York at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, where families find those names inscribed and lay flowers in memory. We remember the firefighters, police officers and countless other first responders who selflessly rushed to the three sites of the terrorist attacks in downtown New York, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to help other citizens, knowing they may not make it back to their own families waiting at home.

In our  9/11: 25 Years Later special section of Wednesday's edition, we talked to several leaders in Sumter who shared how the events of that day left their mark on them, their profession, our community and the world. Like many of us do, they recalled where they were when they learned what was happening.

Also for this special edition, I thought one way of honoring each of these victims and the brave people who died helping them was to list each of their names. Knowing that number - 2,977 people, not including the 19 hijackers - by itself may make it difficult to grasp just how many died. But as I put each of those names on almost all of five full newspaper pages in small font, I realized just how many people were lost, how many families were changed that day. I wondered who they were - was this person a firefighter, a trader, a banker, an aunt, a chef, an expectant mother? I think seeing the many names helps show the scale of the loss our country suffered that day. I hope in seeing all their names here, you will wonder, too, and honor them by reading them.

Twenty-five years later, we pause to reflect on that day and the years that followed - the victims whose lives were taken from them, the heroism displayed by first responders, the desperation the victims' families felt, the patriotism many of us felt afterward and Operation Enduring Freedom that followed to punish those responsible and remove the Taliban from power. We won't forget.

Please read  the special section at https://www.theitem.com/stories/wednesday-friday-sept-9-11-2026,446933