General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, sent out a message across the Defense Department this afternoon:
24 years ago today, terrorists attacked our nation. That morning, and in the days, months, and years that followed, you each answered the call to service without hesitation.
The courage of our first responders, teammates who ran into the Pentagon to help others, and the heroic passengers of Flight 93 carried us through times of fear and uncertainty, reminding us that America’s strength lies in those willing to serve and sacrifice for others. America fought back within minutes of the attack. Every sacrifice they made that day and that you’ve made has safeguarded the promise of a safer tomorrow.
May we always remember the 2,977 Americans that perished on September 11th and the nearly 7,000 killed and 60,000 wounded in combat since then.
On this anniversary of a horrible day for our nation, I ask you to take a moment today to remember. Remember their names and I thank you and your families for your continued service and devotion to our nation.
There’s also a video with a similar message.
My late co-blogger, Doug Mataconis, and I have written a lot of posts reflecting on 9/11 anniversaries over the years:
- “9/11 Convention,” James Joyner, 2004
- “Remembering 911,” James Joyner, 2005
- “Fifth Anniversary of 9/11 Attacks,” James Joyner, 2006
- “Remembering 9/11 Without Obsessing Over It,” Doug Mataconis, 2007
- “Have We Forgotten 9/11?” James Joyner, 2008
- “Commemorating Anniversaries,” James Joyner, 2009
- “December 7, 1951 v. September 11, 2011,” Doug Mataconis, 2011 (10th anniversary)
- “A Decade of Lost Freedom,” Doug Mataconis, 2011
- “No Football On 9/11?” Doug Mataconis, 2011
- “9/11’s Legacy Of Fear,” Doug Mataconis, 2012
- “The Lost National ‘Unity’ Of September 11th,” Doug Mataconis, 2016
- “9/11 And America’s Forever War,” Doug Mataconis, 2018
- “9/11/01, Eighteen Years Later,” Doug Mataconis, 2019
- “9/11 at 20,” James Joyner, 2021
- “9/11 at 22“, James Joyner, 2023
A constant theme throughout was that, as time went on, we’d soon start forgetting, never mind the Never Forget banners. Indeed, the first of those posts—20 years ago now!—concluded:
[I]t’s unlikely that there will be all that much coverage of the 9/11 anniversary, anyway. The first one was an event. The second one, not so much. Once the immediacy of an event is over, commemorations fade. The 5th, 10th, 20th, and 25th anniversaries of major events get some nostalgic coverage. Three isn’t a particularly celebrated number. My guess is the attention will be focused on the Major League penant races and the start of football season, not 9/11.
My two children were born roughly seven and ten years after the attacks. My two oldest stepchildren were still in diapers, while the youngest was born two years after. None, therefore, have any personal recollection. Indeed, plenty of veterans of the Global War in Terror, including the Afghanistan War, were born after the attacks or otherwise have no memory of it.
Nobody remembers the Maine or the Alamo anymore. While the Pearl Harbor attacks may live in infamy, relatively few Americans will have personal memories when we commemorate the 84th anniversary in a couple of months.
Indeed, almost an identical span separated Pearl Harbor and my birth as 9/11 and today.
Caine’s rightly urges, “May we always remember the 2,977 Americans that perished on September 11th and the nearly 7,000 killed and 60,000 wounded in combat since then.”
But the numbers are sobering: our response to the attacks cost us two-and-a-third times more American dead than the attacks themselves. I absolutely supported going into Afghanistan and otherwise wreaking vengeance on Al Qaeda and the Taliban for their parts in the attack. But the mission morphed into something more elusive and costly.
