Twenty five years ago this morning, millions of Americans woke up expecting nothing more remarkable than another Tuesday in September, and by bedtime the country we thought we understood had changed forever. We remember the impossibly blue sky, televisions suddenly appearing in offices and classrooms, frantic telephone calls that would not go through, radio personalities abandoning music logs and format clocks, smoke pouring from buildings we could not imagine falling and the horrifying realization that thousands of people who had kissed somebody goodbye that morning were never coming home. September 11 2001 did not merely become another date in American history. It became the line separating before from after.
Today it has been 25 years.
A quarter century.
And that somehow seems impossible.
There are adults raising children today who were not alive when it happened.
There are teachers explaining September 11 to students who have never known a world in which September 11 wasn’t history.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum estimates that roughly 100 million Americans are now too young to personally remember the attacks.
Think about that.
One hundred million Americans.
For them there is no memory of where they were.
No memory of the confusion.
No memory of the silence.
No memory of staring at the television.
No memory of the second airplane.
No memory of the Pentagon.
No memory of Flight 93.
No memory of watching those towers fall.
No memory of wondering what might happen next.
They know the story because we tell them.
And maybe that means those of us who remember have inherited another responsibility.
WE ARE NOW THE KEEPERS OF THE MEMORY
So Where Were You
That’s the question On The Dial wants America to answer today.
Not simply where were you geographically.
Where were you in your life?
Were you driving to work?
Sitting in homeroom?
Getting your children ready for school?
Standing behind a radio console?
Walking into a sales meeting?
Sleeping after an overnight shift?
Sitting in traffic?
Did somebody run into the room and tell you to turn on the television?
Were you listening to the radio when the music suddenly stopped?
Did you initially believe the first crash was some horrible accident?
Did you see the second plane hit?
Did you call your mother?
Your father?
Your spouse?
Your children?
Did you know somebody in New York?
Washington?
Pennsylvania?
Did you sit there silently because there simply weren’t words big enough for what you were watching?
Where were you?
Tell us.
Tell your children.
Tell your grandchildren.
Tell somebody who wasn’t alive yet.
Because someday there will be nobody left who remembers September 11 firsthand.
And then all they will have is what we bothered to preserve.
The Names Are Being Read Again Today
At the National September 11 Memorial in New York, families are gathering again today to do something simultaneously simple and almost unbearably powerful.
They are reading the names.
One after another.
The names of the 2983 people killed in the September 11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing are being spoken aloud by family members.
Not statistics.
Names.
Somebody’s mother.
Somebody’s father.
Somebody’s husband.
Somebody’s wife.
Somebody’s son.
Somebody’s daughter.
Somebody’s best friend.
Somebody’s coworker.
Somebody who left coffee sitting on the kitchen counter.
Somebody who forgot something at home.
Somebody who complained about traffic.
Somebody who said
SEE YOU TONIGHT
And didn’t.
That’s what terrorism stole that morning.
Not buildings.
PEOPLE
And Twenty Five Years Later The Loss Is Still Growing
This year’s commemoration includes something new.
For the first time, a seventh moment of silence is being observed for the first responders, recovery workers and others who have died from illnesses connected to the toxic aftermath of September 11.
That matters.
Because September 11 didn’t stop killing people when the smoke cleared.
Firefighters went in.
Police officers went in.
Paramedics went in.
Construction workers went in.
Recovery crews went in.
Volunteers went in.
People spent days and weeks and months breathing what was hanging over Lower Manhattan.
Years later, thousands have faced illnesses associated with that exposure.
So today we remember them too.
THE PEOPLE WHO RAN TOWARD HELL WHEN EVERY HUMAN INSTINCT TOLD THEM TO RUN AWAY
And Radio Was There
This is On The Dial.
So we need to talk about the radio.
Because when America became terrified that Tuesday morning, millions of people instinctively reached for something sitting in their cars, kitchens, offices and workplaces.
THE RADIO
Regular programming disappeared.
Music stopped.
Clocks became irrelevant.
Promotional liners suddenly sounded ridiculous.
Nobody cared about the contest at 8:20.
Nobody cared whether the station hit its quarter-hour music promise.
America needed information.
Radio gave it information.
America needed reassurance.
Radio tried to provide reassurance.
America needed human beings.
RADIO PUT HUMAN BEINGS BEHIND MICROPHONES
The National Association of Broadcasters is marking this anniversary by revisiting precisely that role, including firsthand reflections about how local broadcasters helped communities navigate the fear and uncertainty of September 11.
That’s worth remembering in 2026.
Because There Was No Push Notification
Your phone wasn’t vibrating every fifteen seconds.
There wasn’t X.
There wasn’t Facebook.
There wasn’t TikTok.
There wasn’t Instagram.
There wasn’t YouTube as we know it.
There wasn’t an endless stream of livestreams.
There wasn’t a citizen journalist standing on every corner with a 4K camera in his pocket.
There was television.
There were newspapers.
There were websites struggling under extraordinary traffic.
And there was radio.
LIVE
IMMEDIATE
LOCAL
A voice coming through the dashboard saying
Here’s what we know.
Here’s what we don’t know.
Here’s what’s happening.
Here’s where you should go.
Here’s what authorities are saying.
Stay with us.
We’ll stay with you.
That Last Part Is What Radio Does
We’ll stay with you.
Those four words could almost be the mission statement of local broadcasting.
Tornado?
We’ll stay with you.
Hurricane?
We’ll stay with you.
Wildfire?
We’ll stay with you.
Flood?
We’ll stay with you.
School shooting?
We’ll stay with you.
Power outage?
We’ll stay with you.
National tragedy?
WE’LL STAY WITH YOU
Spotify is extraordinary.
YouTube is extraordinary.
Streaming is extraordinary.
But there are moments when people don’t need another song.
They need somebody who knows where they are.
September 11 was one of those moments.
But There Is Something Else I Remember About That Week
And this may be the part we need most today.
For a little while
WE WERE JUST AMERICANS
Not Republicans.
Not Democrats.
Not conservatives.
Not liberals.
Not red states.
Not blue states.
Not whatever demographic label somebody’s algorithm has assigned us.
Americans.
People stood in lines to donate blood.
People brought food to first responders.
People checked on neighbors.
Churches opened their doors.
Synagogues opened their doors.
Mosques mourned innocent lives alongside the rest of the country.
People displayed flags.
People hugged strangers.
People said thank you to firefighters.
People called family members they hadn’t spoken to enough.
And for a fleeting moment, the things we thought divided us seemed awfully small compared with what united us.
America Wasn’t Perfect on September 12
Let’s not romanticize everything.
There was fear.
There was anger.
There was confusion.
There was prejudice.
There were Americans who were treated terribly because somebody looked at them and made assumptions about who they were.
That is part of the history too.
Remembering America honestly means remembering all of it.
But there was also something extraordinary.
PEOPLE NEEDED EACH OTHER
And they knew it.
That’s the part I wonder whether we’ve forgotten.
Look At Us Now
Twenty five years later we can barely disagree without declaring somebody our enemy.
Politics.
Race.
Religion.
Vaccines.
Immigration.
Gender.
Presidents.
Wars.
Police.
Schools.
Football.
Hell somebody can probably start a national argument over a sandwich before lunch.
Everything becomes a battlefield.
Everything becomes teams.
Everything becomes
US AGAINST THEM
And maybe September 11 should remind us of something uncomfortable.
There are moments when there is no them.
There is only us.
We Don’t Have To Agree
That isn’t unity.
Unity isn’t everybody thinking the same way.
That’s conformity.
America was never designed for that.
We are loud.
Complicated.
Argumentative.
Diverse.
Stubborn.
Sometimes exhausting.
😂
That’s us.
But disagreement does not require hatred.
Different politics do not require dehumanization.
Different religions do not require enemies.
Different skin colors do not require suspicion.
Different backgrounds do not make somebody less American.
We can disagree passionately and still recognize the humanity sitting across from us.
September 11 taught us how fragile life is
September 12 showed us what we could be when we remembered that.
Maybe That’s The Anniversary Question
Not simply
Do you remember September 11?
Ask yourself something harder.
What did September 11 teach you?
Did it teach you to call your family?
Did it teach you that tomorrow isn’t promised?
Did it teach you to stop postponing things?
Did it change your faith?
Did it make you more patriotic?
Did it make you question things?
Did it change how you viewed firefighters and police officers?
Did it change how you understood war?
Did it change your career?
Did it make you hold your children tighter?
Did it teach you something you’ve since forgotten?
And 25 years later
DO YOU STILL LIVE LIKE YOU LEARNED IT?
That’s the question.
Radio People I Especially Want To Hear From You
Where were you?
What station?
What market?
What shift?
What happened inside your building?
Who made the decision to dump programming?
Who grabbed the microphone?
What did you tell listeners when you didn’t know what was happening yourself?
Did your phones explode?
Did listeners cry?
Did you cry?
Did you sleep at the station?
Did you go home?
Do you still have the aircheck?
PLEASE TELL THAT STORY
Because those airchecks are history now.
Save them.
Digitize them.
Post them.
Donate them to archives.
Interview the broadcasters who were there.
Radio documented September 11 in real time.
We shouldn’t allow that history to disappear on a DAT tape sitting inside somebody’s garage.
And Tell Your Children
This may be the most important thing we do today.
The Memorial & Museum says about 100 million Americans are too young to remember September 11 themselves.
So don’t assume they understand.
Show them.
Explain it.
Not to frighten them.
Not to make them hate anybody.
DO THE OPPOSITE
Tell them about the firefighters climbing stairs while everybody else was coming down.
Tell them about police officers.
Paramedics.
Flight attendants.
Passengers.
Office workers helping coworkers.
Strangers carrying strangers.
People lining up to donate blood.
People volunteering.
Tell them about courage.
Tell them about sacrifice.
Tell them what hatred can destroy.
And then tell them what love can rebuild.
Maybe Today We Could Try Something Radical
Call somebody you love.
Forgive somebody.
Thank a first responder.
Check on a veteran.
Buy somebody lunch.
Help a stranger.
Donate blood.
Volunteer.
Turn off the political screaming for an hour.
Sit with your children.
Listen to somebody whose life is different from yours.
Do something kind without filming yourself doing it.
Imagine that.
😂
Nobody needs to know.
Just do it.
Because the best tribute to people whose tomorrows were stolen isn’t simply remembering how they died.
IT IS DOING SOMETHING GOOD WITH THE TOMORROW YOU WERE GIVEN
Tonight Two Towers Will Rise Again
They won’t be made of steel.
They’ll be made of light.
The annual Tribute in Light will again send two enormous beams into the New York sky, recreating the shape of what once stood there and honoring the people who never came home.
There is something almost impossible to describe about that image.
The buildings are gone.
The people are gone.
But the light remains.
Maybe that’s the metaphor.
THE LIGHT REMAINS
Twenty Five Years
The children grew up.
The skyline changed.
Wars began and ended.
Presidents came and went.
Technology transformed our lives.
Radio consolidated.
Social media arrived.
The world got faster.
America got louder.
And September 11 slowly moved from breaking news
to memory
to history.
But today
for one day
stop.
Remember.
Remember 8:46.
Remember 9:03.
Remember the Pentagon.
Remember Flight 93.
Remember the towers falling.
Remember the firefighters climbing.
Remember the police officers running.
Remember the dispatchers answering.
Remember the broadcasters talking.
Remember the families waiting.
Remember the photographs taped to walls.
Remember the names.
Remember the empty chairs at dinner tables.
Remember the people who became sick years later because they went toward Ground Zero when America needed them.
REMEMBER THEM
And Then Remember Us
Remember how quickly strangers became neighbors.
Remember how desperately we wanted to help.
Remember how much we suddenly appreciated the people sitting beside us.
Remember how little anybody cared about the stupid things we’d been arguing about on September 10.
Remember how many people said
I LOVE YOU
because suddenly they understood they might not get another chance.
Maybe America doesn’t need another tragedy to remember that.
God I hope not.
Maybe an anniversary can be enough.
So America I’m Asking You
Where were you?
What were you doing?
Who were you with?
Who did you call?
What did you hear on the radio?
What do you remember most?
What did September 11 teach you?
And perhaps most importantly
WHAT DOES SEPTEMBER 11 STILL REQUIRE OF YOU 25 YEARS LATER
Put your answer in the comments.
Tell your story.
Even if it’s only three sentences.
Especially if it’s three sentences.
Because somebody reading it wasn’t alive yet.
Somebody needs your memory.
And maybe somebody who was alive needs the reminder.
Twenty five years later, we don’t honor September 11 by hating harder.
We don’t honor the dead by becoming crueler.
We don’t honor first responders by forgetting service.
We don’t honor freedom by refusing to listen to one another.
And we certainly don’t honor America by deciding that another American must be our enemy simply because they vote differently, pray differently, look differently or see the world differently.
We honor September 11 by remembering what hatred costs.
We honor September 12 by remembering what love did next.
So today
lower the temperature.
Raise the flag.
Say the names.
Tell the stories.
Turn on the radio.
Call your family.
Help somebody.
Remember the fallen.
Honor the living.
Teach the children.
And somewhere between the arguments and algorithms and endless noise of modern America
try to remember the country that reached for one another when the sky went dark.
We were hurt.
We were afraid.
We were angry.
But for one unforgettable moment
WE WERE TOGETHER
Twenty five years later
maybe the greatest tribute we can give the people we lost
is finding our way back to each other without needing another tragedy to show us how.
Never Forget
September 11 2001
On The Dial
#NeverForget #September11 #September11TwentyFive #RadioRemembers #UnitedWeStand #OnTheDial