- September 16, 2026
Dear Editor:
I was in the World Trade Center when the first hijacked plane hit the North Tower 25 years ago. Even after these many years, I can recall and replay almost minute to minute in granular detail how that horrific day unfolded, as if it happened yesterday.
There is little doubt that survivors and responders who were present that day at or around Ground Zero maintain the same detailed, clear recollection, as well. And, like me, they will never need to be reminded of the 9/11 motto, “We Will Never Forget”. For those of us, remembering is “baked in” forever.
For me those indelible details included the mad dash out of the North Tower, the hunkering down in my office just a few blocks away, watching both buildings collapse from that office window, the long surreal trek out through the thick smoke and dust with the white dust covered streets looking like a winter snowfall, and eventually the view from the Manhattan Bridge escape route of the nearly mile high plume of smoke coming from the remains of both leveled towers.
After finally making it home many hours later and even after the adrenaline rush subsided, the full impact wasn’t felt until I awoke the next day and realized that it had not been just a really bad day, but rather that the whole world may have moved to a very dark place and may not fully recover. I flashed back 60 years to how Franklin Roosevelt famously referred to Pearl Harbor as “a day that will live in infamy".
Needless to say, the eventual return to lower Manhattan and Ground Zero just a few days later was beyond grim and continued to be for a very long time.
These two and a half decades later, Manhattan has come back and built back, but normality has never fully returned anywhere, with the lingering dark legacy of 9/11 continuing to play out worldwide and still impacting everyday life.
It has re-shaped geopolitics, U.S. domestic and foreign policy, global and domestic travel, caused the rise of xenophobia, profoundly affected Middle East stability, and continues to affect victim families. And the health-related legacy persists for many thousands of responders, survivors and recovery workers impacted by their exposure to toxins released by the collapse of the Twin Towers.
Robert Gordon
Palm Coast
