From the NFRW Armed Services Committee
Our patriots, both service members and emergency response personnel, have given their all for the United States. September, 11, 2001 required the best they could offer that day, and then for the next 20 years as a result of the terrorist attack that took so many lives.
Most everyone can remember where they were and what they were doing on the exact moment the first plane struck the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001.
Four planes flying over the eastern U.S. were seized simultaneously by small teams of hijackers. They were then used as giant, guided missiles to crash into landmark buildings in New York and Washington. The first hit the North Tower at 08:46 Eastern Time. The second crashed into the South Tower at 09:03. The buildings were set on fire, trapping people on the upper floors, and wreathing the city in smoke. In less than two hours, both 110-storey towers collapsed in massive clouds of dust.
In all, 2,977 people (not counting the 19 hijackers) lost their lives, most of them in New York.
- All 246 passengers and crew aboard the four planes were killed.
- At the Twin Towers, 2,606 people died - then or later of injuries.
- At the Pentagon, 125 people were killed.
When the first plane struck, an estimated 17,400 people were in the towers. Nobody survived above the impact zone in the North Tower, but 18 managed to escape from the floors above the impact zone in the South Tower.
Led by Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda blamed the U.S. and its allies for conflicts in the Muslim world. Less than a month after the attacks, President George W Bush led an invasion of Afghanistan - supported by an international coalition -- to eradicate al-Qaeda and hunt down Bin Laden. However, it was not until 2011 that U.S. troops finally located and killed Bin Laden in neighboring Pakistan.
No one will ever forget, nor should they forget, what happened on that tragic day on September 11, 2001. It changed our country forever!