Today we remember.

Twenty-five years ago today, America experienced a morning that changed the world forever.

It is difficult for me to comprehend that a quarter of a century has passed since September 11, 2001. I will remember that morning, and the days and weeks that followed, for as long as I live.

Like so many Americans, I remember where I was. I remember what I was doing. I remember the confusion as the first reports came in, followed by the disbelief and horror as we watched events unfold that none of us could fully comprehend.

We watched the World Trade Center towers burn and then fall.

We watched smoke rise from the Pentagon.

We learned that another airplane had crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

And slowly, painfully, we began to understand the magnitude of what had happened.

Nearly 3,000 lives were lost that day.

But numbers alone can never tell the story of September 11.

Every number represented a person.

A mother or father. A husband or wife. A partner. A son or daughter. A brother or sister. A friend. A coworker.

They were people who woke up that Tuesday morning expecting an ordinary day.

Some went to work.

Some boarded airplanes.

Some kissed their families goodbye.

Some hurried because they were running late.

Some probably left home without saying goodbye at all, assuming, as we all do, that there would be another opportunity.

For thousands of families, there wasn’t.

That is part of what makes September 11 so difficult to comprehend even twenty-five years later. It began as such an ordinary morning.

And then everything changed.

But amid the horror, something else happened.

Ordinary people became heroes.

Firefighters climbed stairways inside burning towers while thousands of people were desperately trying to escape them.

Police officers, paramedics and other first responders ran toward danger without knowing what awaited them.

Office workers helped coworkers down dozens of flights of stairs.

Strangers helped strangers.

People carried the injured.

Others stayed behind because someone needed them.

Some gave their lives trying to save people whose names they didn’t even know.

And aboard United Airlines Flight 93, passengers and crew members learned through telephone calls that hijacked airplanes had already struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

They realized their aircraft was likely intended to become another weapon.

Faced with an almost unimaginable reality, they made a decision.

They would fight back.

Flight 93 never reached its intended target in Washington, D.C. Everyone aboard died when the aircraft crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, but their actions became one of the defining stories of courage from that terrible day.

We will never know exactly how many lives were saved because they chose to act.

That is one of the enduring lessons of September 11.

Heroes do not always wear uniforms.

They do not necessarily wake up knowing that this will be the day they are asked to do something extraordinary.

Sometimes an ordinary person is simply confronted with an extraordinary moment.

And they choose to act.

We should also remember that the story of September 11 did not end when the smoke cleared.

Thousands of survivors carried physical and emotional scars with them.

First responders, recovery workers, volunteers and others spent days, weeks and months working at Ground Zero, the Pentagon and the Flight 93 crash site. Many would later suffer serious illnesses associated with their exposure during the rescue and recovery efforts.

Families learned how to continue living with an empty chair at the dinner table, an unanswered telephone and birthdays and anniversaries that would forever carry an absence.

Children grew up without parents.

Parents grew old without children.

Husbands, wives and partners learned how to build lives around a loss they never expected.

September 11 did not happen only to the people who died that morning.

Its impact traveled through families, communities and generations.

Twenty-five years later, there is another reason remembering matters.

There is now an entire generation of Americans who were not alive on September 11, 2001. To them, September 11 is history.

To many of us, it is memory.

That distinction matters.

Those of us who remember have a responsibility to tell the story, not simply of the terror and destruction, but of the humanity we witnessed in response to it.

Today, twenty-five years later, we honor everyone who lost their life on September 11, 2001.

We honor the firefighters, police officers, paramedics and first responders who ran toward danger while others were running away.

We honor the passengers and crew members aboard the four airplanes.

We honor the workers and volunteers who searched through the rubble in the days and months that followed.

We remember those who later became ill because they answered the call.

And we remember the families and loved ones who have carried the loss for twenty-five years.

Most importantly, we remember the people.

People.

They had dreams.

They had plans for September 12.

Today, those of us who remember September 11 have the responsibility of carrying their stories forward so that those who were not yet born will understand what happened, and why we promised never to forget.

Twenty-five years have passed.

The skyline has changed.

A generation has grown up.

Life moved forward, as life always does.

But the memory remains.

September 11, 2001.

Twenty-five years later, we remember.

We honor.

And we never forget.