We were having oatmeal and tea for breakfast in our hotel room in Shreveport, Louisiana, where we were about to start the work day. Had tv news on as wallpaper as we finished eating. As you said, Splinter , the first announcement was that a small plane had apparently hit one of the towers, and initial speculation ranged from a pilot heart attack to the then-far-out thought that the pilot of a private plane could possibly have been so desperately crazed by an unfaceable life situation that he could have deliberately run into the bldg in order to end his own life.
Our mourning as a nation was ameliorated by the instant outpouring of emotional support by countries around the world (yes, the same countries now being insulted, ridiculed, and tariffed by the USA 25 years later. And yes, the now-disparaged NATO countries who then rushed to military defense of the USA, the only time NATO's article five has ever been in play).
Fast-forward to 2026, and look back.
What a different country we had then, before we had leaders reviling opponents as "enemies," and urging their followers on to threaten those not in the cult, and to violently follow through on those threats. The conservative Heritage Society has found that, in a nation of 344 million people, in the 2020 election there were approximately 100 people who voted although ineligible. Yet Americans let themselves be persuaded that the election was "stolen," and they committed acts of violence on the police at the US Capitol and on their fellow Americans.
We were a better country when we were united against a common enemy, rather than letting ourselves be lured into believing that the enemy is within.
