I was sitting in a chair in my home office talking to a friend. My feet were propped up on the desk; the television was on but the sound was muted. I was holding this conversation and inattentively watching the screen…but I saw a plane crashing into a building. Not in any stretch of my imagination did I think this might be real. Until my friend said he thought something was going on. It was real.

On September 11, 2001, terrorists linked to the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger airplanes and conducted suicide attacks against targets in the United States.

Two of the planes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York City. Within a few hours, both of the twin towers collapsed into rubble, demolishing a large section of lower Manhattan. A third plane hit the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The passengers and crew of the fourth plane fought back, and the plane was downed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Almost 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including the nineteen al Qaeda terrorists. The shocking events of September 11 were televised globally and left much of the world reeling in horror.

We can never forget what happened here. Terrorism came knocking. We can never forget what terrorism feels like or the damage it can do. We can never forget how close we are to the rest of the world.